Published
Thu, Feb 13 202010:18 AM EST Megan Leonhardt@MEGAN_LEONHARDT
Almost a third of working Americans currently
have some kind of medical debt and about 28% of those who have an outstanding
balance owe $10,000 or more on their bills.
When asked if they’ve ever defaulted on those
bills, about 54% of people with medical debt said they had, according to a
new survey fielded by Salary Finance of over
2,700 U.S. adults working at companies with over 500 employees.
And that’s among people who are employed and
typically have health insurance, Dan Macklin, Salary Finance’s U.S. CEO and
co-founder of SoFi, tells CNBC Make It.
“Even if people have insurance, their
deductibles are going up and people are spending more on health care,” he says.
“Across the country, across different income levels, we see the reason people
are short on money and often need to borrow money is often related to medical
debt.”
Americans spend an average of about $5,000 a
year on out-of-pocket health care costs, including insurance, prescriptions and
medical supplies, according to the latest consumer spending data from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s double the amount Americans spent in 1984,
according to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Consumer
Expenditures Survey by data company Clever.
Last year, the cost of medical care rose 4.6%
from what consumers were paying in 2018, the largest year-over-year increase
since 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Consumer Price Index. Prescription drug prices
and the cost of hospital services both rose 3% from 2018 to 2019, while
physician services also saw a slight year-over-year increase.
It’s not surprising, then, that 45% of survey
respondents say they feel worried or stressed when thinking about health care
costs. A third report they have avoided going to the doctor and getting medical
care due to the cost.
Americans are depleting their own savings to
pay their medical bills, Macklin says. In many cases, even if they and their
immediate family have health insurance, Macklin says they may be helping other
family members, particularly adult children, pay off medical debt.
Keep in mind this is occurring at a time when
the U.S. workforce is solid and the economy has been on an upward trajectory.
“It’s great, in one sense, that unemployment is staying low and it’s great that
job growth continues, but those macro trends are masking the underlying pain
people are feeling,” Macklin says.
“Your salary may be going up, but when health
care, education and housing costs are going up at a faster rate and they take
up a large portion of your paycheck, then you’re not necessarily richer off,”
he says. In fact, you’re probably left with less, and that becomes a problem
when big bills hit.
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