The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

If it seems like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about the rising cost of health care, that’s because up until this year, these mounting medical costs had leveled.

But in the new America, it seems you can’t keep a high cost down.

In reality, the costs of employer-sponsored health insurance surged during 2011, cutting short a timely trend toward only “moderate growth.” According to a report released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, annual premiums for family coverage climbed 9 percent and surpassed $15,000 for the first time. Premiums for single coverage rose 8 percent compared to 2010.…

The main thrust of 2005’s Bankruptcy Reform Act (unceremoniously known as “BARF”), is a bankruptcy deterrent called the “Means Test”—a formula for determining your ability to pay back your debts. Your inability to pass this test limits your options to filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan, which still discharges your unsecured debt, but takes longer to complete.

With March 2010 figures yielding the highest number of reported Chapter 7 bankruptcies since 2005 (the year the “Means Test,” caused a dramatic reduction in bankruptcy cases), the efficacy of this apparent obstacle to Chapter 7 protections may be of particular interest to many considering personal bankruptcy.…

This blog talks at length about savings strategies and offers a great deal of consumer spending advice. Our goal is to create an all-encompassing approach to helping readers, clients and potential clients be financially successful after bankruptcy.

Having a healthy savings account should be the goal of anyone rebuilding after bankruptcy. But after the great bank fallout of the last two years, it’s becoming hard for a lot Americans to trust some of our nation’s largest financial institutions. Not only are the rate of return on these accounts very low, it seems every day banks are surprising account holders with a sudden fee or reduction in service.…

For all the political uncertainties about health care reform, at least one thing seems clear: when President Obama signed landmark health care legislation into law this week, it marked real changes for Americans facing medical debt.

And, as such, these changes couldn’t come at a better time. Even amid surging unemployment and mortgages underwater, health care expenses have become the primary financial breaking point for millions of Americans. According to a Harvard study recently reported in the LA Times, medical bills played a role in 62% of personal bankruptcies filed in 2007,  up 7% from 2001. Most striking, a vast majority (78%) of these Chapter 7 filers actually had health insurance.…