The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

For jobless Americans—forced from their careers during an era of economic uncertainty (and in an environment of staggering unemployment rates)—the lingering financial malaise has proven to be more than just a little bit hazardous to their health.

As it turns out, nine million laid-off Americans lost all health insurance in last two years.

In fact, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund, a private proponent of health care reform, 57 percent of Americans who lost a job that provided them health insurance could not afford to regain that health care coverage post-layoff.

What’s worse is that the same report found that some 19 million Americans who tried to purchase a health plan on their own in the insurance marketplace between 2007 and 2010 were either rejected due to the dreaded “pre-existing condition” excuse or were simply unable to find affordable coverage that fit their health care needs.…

If you’re a recent retiree or even if you have long-since left the workforce, the lingering economic malaise just got a little bit more hazardous to your health. As it turns out, many states and municipalities searching for places to trim their budgets are setting their sights on the relatively sizeable expenses of providing health care benefits to millions of retired state and local workers.

According to The New York Times,  “As they contend with growing budget deficits and higher pension costs, some mayors are complaining that their outlays for retiree health benefits are rising by 20 percent a year — a result of the wave of retirements of baby boomers and longer life expectancies on top of the double-digit rate of health care inflation.…

Retirement is the time when we’re supposed to enjoy our money. With decades of work behind us, mortgages paid off and a healthy 401(k) ready to be cashed, retirement is when we hang it all up and really start to enjoy life. Right?

Hello? Anyone?

Yeah, not many of you there huh?

Recent surveys are showing that more Americans in retirement have simply grown tired of the constant frustrations with long-term debt and have decided to just push on, forget about the debt, and let the chips fall where they may.

A survey put together by CESI Debt Solutions and discussed more in depth in this USA Today piece, shows that close to 40 percent of retired citizens admit to accumulating credit card debt that they do not intend to pay off.…

Following the last several years of the worst economic downturn in recent history, economists, commentators and financial experts have recently been heartened about prospects for economic growth and recovery as industries increasingly report better profits and the potential for new jobs with these increased revenues. Yet, even as the economy begins to emerge from its recent doldrums, many Americans remain buried in bills, job applications, and home and consumer debts. And unfortunately, many are likely to remain in debt with very few solutions other than facing and dealing with the prospect of insolvency.

And apparently now, the proof is in the pudding…and the staggering figures.…

Millions of Americans have been suffering from near double-digit unemployment—averaging at about 9.5 percent—for more than a year; unfortunately now news is coming to light that these very same jobless Americans are paying more than most when suffering from an illness, injury or basic medical conditions or assistance.

According to a recent report by The Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett, the average cost of health care plans for jobless Americans is steadily increasing. “Terminated workers are paying an average of $429 a month this year for individual HMO coverage, compared to $399 for the same coverage in 2009, according to a survey conducted by Aon Consulting.…

The Obama Administration’s recent landmark health care laws will mean exciting changes for Americans seeking better medical insurance and/or facing crushing medical debt. But for many, these changes can’t come quickly enough. And for some the changes may come late—especially for already beleaguered and bankruptcy bound individuals facing unexpected illnesses, injuries or surgeries.

So what can you do to minimize the financial impact of an unexpected a medical emergency?

Step One – Assess the Damage
In the case of a medical emergency, you rarely have time to weigh the pros and cons of health care costs. Nevertheless, an important step once the bills are a foregone conclusion is to take some time to calculate the costs.…

Even the briefest of hospital stays can result in bills just big enough to tilt a person already precariously balancing their finances over the edge and into a long-term financial abyss. The problem with being able to afford medical care is enough to make many Americans wait until circumstances become dire before heading to the emergency room. Even the well-insured become cautious about co-pays and premium increases.

For college student Samantha Palmer, a one-day lapse in insurance coverage led to a medical debt hassle requiring legal assistance. In the midst of switching medical insurance providers, Palmer found herself suddenly in pain on the one day she was without insurance.…

When President Obama signed landmark health care legislation into law, it meant unprecedented changes for Americans seeking better medical insurance and facing crushing medical debt. For many, these changes can’t come quickly enough. Even amid surging unemployment and a national housing crisis, health care expenses have quickly become the primary budget buster for millions of beleaguered 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. Shockingly, 78% of these filers actually had health insurance.

As these staggering numbers reveal, medical expenses are a primary reason many average people just like you end up filing for 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.…

The New Year is a few days away. And without doubt, millions of Americans will welcome 2010 with grand hope, desperate to put 2009 far behind them, the year the Great Recession took hold of our collars and shook us into submission. Unfortunately, many Americans will greet the end of the 2000′s first decade still in debt and financially directionless.

But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Bankruptcy, despite all you may think you know about it, can make 2010 the year you really start over, the year things become as you make them, the year you regain control.

The federal government is reporting that with 2009′s end, so goes the worst national economic era to strike the 50 states in decades.…

Medical debt is one of the nation’s largest bankruptcy stimulants. Hospital stays, exotic medications and steep monthly premiums have helped fester a plague of debilitating debt obligations that is said to affect millions of Americans.

Today, on what may eventually be considered an historic day for American government, the United State Congress may have found a cure. Or at the very least, it could be argued that the political chemo drip that has been hanging over the country’s head for almost a century has started to have an effect.

On the eve of our country’s most recognized reason to come together with families and to celebrate life’s little importances, like health and happiness, the United State Senate approved a healthcare reform bill that contains some of the most sweeping changes ever introduced to the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.…

In these painful financial times, the toughest bind facing many Americans is financing their well- being. While it’s vital to stay healthy and seek medical help when necessary, with health care costs on the rise and health care reform largely in limbo, the results of putting wellness over wealth can be financially devastating.

As the New York Times reported, (from the November 25, 2009, article “From the Hospital Room to the Bankruptcy Court” by Kevin Sack), many Americans are merely “one accident or illness away” from a “medical bankruptcy.” And while there is no medical bankruptcy per se—rather merely a standard filing that includes the wiping away of medical bills—more and more people are filing for bankruptcy because of these bills with the ubiquitous term “medically bankrupt” having become largely a sign of the economic times.…

Most people who have filed for bankruptcy understand the feelings of angst and dread that accompany the weeks and months before you make the decision to file.

Eventually, the walk to the mailbox becomes an exercise in personal bravery and the sound of the phone is like a bomb going off inside your psyche, sending shards of guilt-shrapnel into your chest. It can be a painful, daily challenge that can wreak as much physical damage as mental.

The feelings caused by severe debt, generate stress hormones in your body, similar to the “fight or flight response.” (Which is why you often become so angry at collection agents.) As the stress accumulates, it can actually cause damage to the heart, immune system, your memory and digestive tract.…

For far too many people in North Carolina, and the country, job loss has been the primary driver of excessive debt. Even those who spend wisely and are conservative with credit can quickly feel the impact of being laid off. Three months of savings may help. But only for three months.

If you are one of the millions of Americans reluctantly contributing to the unemployment rate, it may seem like things are never going to get better. Looking for a job can be a mentally tiring and frustrating endeavor. And if you are facing the additional pressure of mounting debt from credit cards, a mortgage and maybe a couple of car payments, it can be hard to sleep at night.…

The number of people filing bankruptcy due to medical bills has been rising every year. A recent study in the American Journal of Medicine shows that more than 62% of people filing for bankruptcy do so at least partly because of medical bills they can’t pay. Many filers have insurance – often they’ve ‘capped out’ their insurance and the insurance company refuses to pay any more bills, leaving them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. In other cases, illness has forced people to lose or leave their jobs, meaning that not only do they have no money coming in to pay their bills, but their insurance coverage has often lapsed as well.…

The current administration would love to perpetuate the common belief that most personal bankruptcies are the result of ruinous medical bills. News articles cite numerous studies and statistics that support this theory. But is it really true?

The “recent” Harvard study that has been bandied about lately as proof that the broken US healthcare system is behind the majority of personal bankruptcies was originally published in 2005, five years ago, and was based on data collected in 2001. The study states that “about half of people filing for bankruptcy said health care expenses, illness or related job-loss led them to do so.” Politicians and the media are fond of attributing the “about half” statistic solely to health care expenses as a cause of bankruptcy, as in “about half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.”

In the study, the actual percentage of respondents who indicated that medical issues were a significant factor in declaring bankruptcy was 46.2.…