Health insurance, medical debt, and financial well‐being

Abstract

We study the financial protection provided by health insurance through two natural experiments—the Affordable Care Act's under 26 provision and Medicare eligibility. In both cases, the coverage expansion sharply reduces medical debt in collections for consumers within the affected ages but does not systematically improve credit outcomes not directly related to medical care. This is consistent with the infrequent repayment rate and lack of persistence on credit reports that we document for medical collections, which mute a key channel through which reductions in medical collections could directly affect the other financial outcomes studied here. These results help clarify the role of health insurance in broader financial health and suggest that, at least among the populations studied here, medical debts in collection may often be a symptom rather than a cause of wider financial distress as measured on credit reports.

How does the Internet enhance the subjective well-being of elderly individuals in China?

“…At the same time, considerable evidence shows that health insurance plays an important role in improving self-reported health status, reducing mortality risk ( Braveman and Gruskin, 2003 ; Hadley and Waidmann, 2006 ; Cheng et al, 2015 ; Fan et al, 2020 ), reducing medical expenditure and financial burden ( Batty et al, 2022 ), while it is still unknown whether the Internet can help to enhance health insurance and further improve their physical satisfaction. Compared with traditional communication channels, the Internet has advantages in information exchanging and sharing functions ( Li and Zhou, 2021 ), which reduces information asymmetry between consumers and producers, and reduces online search costs for consumers ( Brown and Goolsbee, 2002 ).…”

“…At the same time, considerable evidence shows that health insurance plays an important role in improving self-reported health status, reducing mortality risk (Braveman and Gruskin, 2003;Hadley and Waidmann, 2006;Cheng et al, 2015;Fan et al, 2020), reducing medical expenditure and financial burden (Batty et al, 2022), while it is still unknown whether the Internet can help to enhance health insurance and further improve their (Li and Zhou, 2021), which reduces information asymmetry between consumers and producers, and reduces online search costs for consumers (Brown and Goolsbee, 2002). By using big data to study elderly individuals' behavior and tastes, the Internet may create insurance products that effectively cater to the needs of various consumers and help supply and demand match.…”

Intention to Purchase Family Takaful: An Extension of Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior

“…Income is an essential part of life to stay alive, and it helps to fulfill daily economic and social accomplishments. The choice of selection of any kind of insurance also depends on the income and health condition of individual (Dong et al, 2019, Batty et al, 2022. Income is also known as the predictor of the family takaful (Aziz et al, 2017;Yazid et al, 2017;Bhatti & Husin, 2020).…”

Trends in charges and association with defaults on medical payments in uninsured Americans: a disproportionate burden in ethnic minorities – a retrospective observational study

“…The difficult task of navigating these charge negotiations as an uninsured patient means that many patients may resort to defaulting on their medical bills, which in turn may subject them to debt collection, having their credit tarnished and place them at increased risk of personal bankruptcy. Recent work has highlighted the causal link between default in medical bills from hospitalisations and personal bankruptcies,15 16 and while the literature on catastrophic health expenditures has noted vulnerabilities among uninsured patients with hospitalisations17–20 it should also be noted that the overall frequency and severity of the financial consequences of healthcare remain at large less settled 21 22…”