Much has been written about the relationship between high medical expenses and the likelihood of filing for bankruptcy, but the relationship between receiving a cancer diagnosis and filing for ...bankruptcy is less well understood. We estimated the incidence and relative risk of bankruptcy for people age twenty-one or older diagnosed with cancer compared to people the same age without cancer by conducting a retrospective cohort analysis that used a variety of medical, personal, legal, and bankruptcy sources covering the Western District of Washington State in US Bankruptcy Court for the period 1995-2009. We found that cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to go bankrupt than people without cancer. Younger cancer patients had 2-5 times higher rates of bankruptcy than cancer patients age sixty-five or older, which indicates that Medicare and Social Security may mitigate bankruptcy risk for the older group. The findings suggest that employers and governments may have a policy role to play in creating programs and incentives that could help people cover expenses in the first year following a cancer diagnosis.
Every corporation has an economic and moral responsibility to its stockholders to perform well financially. However, the number of bankruptcies in Slovakia has been growing for several years without ...an apparent macroeconomic cause. To prevent a rapid denigration and to prevent the outflow of foreign capital, various efforts are being zealously implemented. Robust analysis using conventional bankruptcy prediction tools revealed that the existing models are adaptable to local conditions, particularly local legislation. Furthermore, it was confirmed that most of these outdated tools have sufficient capability to warn of impending financial problems several years in advance. A novel bankruptcy prediction tool that outperforms the conventional models was developed. However, it is increasingly challenging to predict bankruptcy risk as corporations have become more global and more complex and as they have developed sophisticated schemes to hide their actual situations under the guise of “optimization” for tax authorities. Nevertheless, scepticism remains because economic engineers have established bankruptcy as a strategy to limit the liability resulting from court-imposed penalties.
Abstract Background Our 2001 study in 5 states found that medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies. Since then, health costs and the numbers of un- and underinsured have ...increased, and bankruptcy laws have tightened. Methods We surveyed a random national sample of 2314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1032 of them. We designated bankruptcies as “medical” based on debtors' stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness, and the magnitude of their medical debts. Results Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001. Conclusions Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies.
The outcomes of bargaining over losses, the subject of this paper, have rarely been studied. But experimental studies of related situations, such as those involving bankruptcies or bequests in which ...the sum of the legal claims that can be made against a bank or firm or estate are greater than their values, have produced strong support for the proportionality principle. To test whether this principle would find support in other situations involving losses we designed an experimental game in which four players start out with differing initial endowments of real money. They are then informed that a certain amount of this resource has to be given back to the experimenter. How should the loss be shared among the agents? This game was run at different locations and under different treatments over a period of almost three years. We found that the proportionality principle was rarely proposed and even less frequently accepted as a solution to this problem. One of the main reasons for this result was that the two players with the smallest endowments opposed most of the proposals which asked them to contribute at least some positive amount of their own initial resource.
This article teases out the relationship between family form and the state's social safety nets around healthcare, showing the deep unfairness of measuring social safety nets by whether a couple ...marries. By continuing to tie healthcare benefits to specific family structures, we perpetuate the "galloping" inequality marking America today. This article concludes that, whatever happens with the thousands of benefits given to married couples in other domains, social policy should move beyond marriage with respect to healthcare. Delinking support for healthcare coverage and services from family form is just, better assists struggling families, and is in our collective self-interest.
Medical expenses and bankruptcy Friesner, Dan; Hackney, Donald D; McPherson, Matthew Q
Health affairs Web exclusive,
10/2013, Letnik:
32, Številka:
10
Journal Article
The year 2016 marked two decades since debt agreements were introduced into the Australian personal insolvency framework. Debt agreements were designed to offer debtors a cost-effective means of ...making arrangements with their creditors, while avoiding bankruptcy and some of its more serious consequences. Since their inception, debt agreements have grown significantly in popularity. In 2016, they comprised 41.5 per cent of all personal insolvencies in Australia. Yet commentators have expressed concern that debt agreements may be causing harm, particularly to vulnerable debtors on low incomes. These critics maintain that some debt agreement administrators fail to inform debtors of the full implications of signing a debt agreement. In particular, they maintain that many debtors do not understand that signing a debt agreement is an act of bankruptcy with long-term legal and financial consequences. They observe that debtors have few legal options for redress when administrators engage in misleading marketing or breach their obligations under the 'Bankruptcy Act 1966' (Cth) ('Bankruptcy Act'). They also maintain that many debtors derive no tangible benefits from signing a debt agreement, with the majority paying more than 100 per cent of their total debts over the life of the agreement. Critics of the system maintain that many of these debtors would be better off attempting to negotiate repayment arrangements or debt waivers through financial hardship schemes or external dispute resolution ('EDR'). Given the increasing importance of debt agreements within the personal insolvency framework, these concerns warrant careful consideration., The year 2016 marked two decades since debt agreements were introduced into the Australian personal insolvency framework. Debt agreements were designed to offer debtors a cost-effective means of making arrangements with their creditors, while avoiding bankruptcy and some of its more serious consequences. Since their inception, debt agreements have grown significantly in popularity. In 2016, they comprised 41.5 per cent of all personal insolvencies in Australia. Yet commentators have expressed concern that debt agreements may be causing harm, particularly to vulnerable debtors on low incomes. These critics maintain that some debt agreement administrators fail to inform debtors of the full implications of signing a debt agreement. In particular, they maintain that many debtors do not understand that signing a debt agreement is an act of bankruptcy with long-term legal and financial consequences. They observe that debtors have few legal options for redress when administrators engage in misleading marketing or breach their obligations under the 'Bankruptcy Act 1966' (Cth) (‘Bankruptcy Act’). They also maintain that many debtors derive no tangible benefits from signing a debt agreement, with the majority paying more than 100 per cent of their total debts over the life of the agreement. Critics of the system maintain that many of these debtors would be better off attempting to negotiate repayment arrangements or debt waivers through financial hardship schemes or external dispute resolution (‘EDR’). Given the increasing importance of debt agreements within the personal insolvency framework, these concerns warrant careful consideration.
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