Written by: Wade Zhou

The devastating financial toll of paying for urgent medical costs can take years or even a lifetime for some families to recover from. 

Set your browser to gofundme.com, and chances are the first donor cause you see will be someone asking for help to pay their medical bills. Around a third of campaigns on the crowdfunding platform are for medical bills. In some ways, this is unsurprising: Health care is extremely expensive in America. Data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that after adjusting for local costs, the United States spent around $12,500 per person on health care in 2022, double what Canada spent and around 50% more than what Germany spent.

These costs add up quickly. About 3 out of 5 personal bankruptcies in America are associated with medical debt. Doctors and Clinicians analyzed reports and survey data to determine how medical debt is contributing to America's personal bankruptcy problem.

A 2019 study in the American Journal of Public Health found this proportion held, even after the Affordable Care Act drastically increased health insurance coverage. The study estimates that around 530,000 Americans file bankruptcy every year because of medical bills or illness-related work loss.

Research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finds that as of 2021, 58% of debt in collections was related to medical bills. The next most common form of debt in collections, telecommunications bills, only made up 15% of the total.

Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Tim Bruns.

Read more at: How medical debt drives half a million people into bankruptcy each year (finddoctorsfast.com)