You can file this under "It's all Obama's fault":
The number of Americans struggling to pay medical bills fell last year for the first time in nearly a decade -- the latest sign that Obamacare is making health care more affordable.
Sixty-four million people, or approximately 35 percent of the U.S. population, said they had trouble paying bills or were stuck paying off medical debt in the past year, according to a new survey by the Commonwealth Fund released on Thursday. That was down from 75 million people, or 41 percent of the population, in 2012. This marks the first time that figure has fallen since 2005, when Commonwealth started keeping track.So, for the first time instead of the problem of paying off medical debt getting worse, it's getting better. We wonder what happened after 2012 to cause this anomaly (not really). Here's a chart showing the change:
(click on image to enlarge)
(Source: Commonwealth Fund) |