Health care and costs

Bankruptcy

Regarding “Ambulance ride may wreck your budget” (Page A11, Sunday), there is more behind this story than just wrecking one’s budget. While incredibly high bills for ambulance rides alone are unlikely to cause bankruptcy, they may contribute to the possibility of bankruptcy. A diagnosis of cancer, such as the one described for Devin Hall in the article, has been shown to increase the risk of bankruptcy by 2.5 times over persons with no such diagnosis. Furthermore, in matched cancer patients, those having to resort to bankruptcy have been shown to have an 80 percent higher risk of death than those who did not file for bankruptcy. The term “financial toxicity” has been coined to express the harmful effects of inordinate medical bills that patients cannot pay. Can we as a country find a way to avoid bankruptcy in cancer patients, thereby improving their likelihood of living longer? Bankruptcy from medical bills is unheard of in other developed countries.

John T. James, Houston

Surprise billing

Even if Congress is unwilling to expand Medicare to provide health insurance for all Americans, they should at least extend the portions of the federal program to protect all Americans, regardless of age, from surprise billings.

This would apply to all companies that provide health services including ambulance services, emergency room physicians and other health care providers who take advantage of the current fragmented health care system.

The federal government already sets reimbursement rates for ambulance services and emergency room physicians for Medicare patients. There is no reason those same rates and protections cannot apply to Americans under age 65.

Like pre-existing conditions and life-time limits on health insurance coverage, surprise billings should be addressed at the federal level and become a thing of the past.

Bill Meyer, Kingwood