While foreclosures have had a significant on home ownership for many Chicagoland families in recent months, the Washington Post reported on September 19, 2012, that Illinois’ US Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. had a different reason for selling his Washington DC home: medical bills. The Post reported that the 47-year-old congressman had not been seen on Capitol Hill since returning home after seeking treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for depression. The truth remains that families across the country are one hospital visit away from incurring medical expenses that dramatically alter their financial futures. In January 2012, a study released in the American Journal of Medicine found that over 62 percent of bankruptcies have a medical cause. Three quarters of these individuals filing Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy also had health insurance. On September 17, 2012, the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch reported that a report published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that health care costs in the last five years of an individual’s life can be much bigger than anticipated. Average out-of-pocket expenditures for Medicare beneficiaries in the five years prior to death were $38,688 for individuals and $51,030 for couples in which one spouse dies, the study said. MarketWatch also noted that more than three-quarters of households spent at least $10,000 in that five-year period, and 11 percent of single and 9 percent of married households spent more than $100,000. Just as medical costs later in life can be staggering, they also affect families who are helping other beginning lives. On September 18, 2012, Reuters reported that out-of-pocket expenses for labor and delivery increased 74 percent between 2004 and 2009. Mothers paid an average $1,148 out of pocket in 2009 after averaging $661 five years prior, according to data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Kevin Benjamin Benjamin Legal Services
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chapter 13 bankruptcy, chapter 7, medical bills, mayo clinic, medicare, jesse jackson jr., foreclosures, out-of-pocket expenditures,
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