And rain is wet!
Sometimes a medical research paper comes out that stretches the imagination of what is possible in the world. Some papers change how we view our very reality.
And some papers. . . do none of that but are still incredibly important because they support an obvious truth. An obvious truth that some policy makers pretend doesn't exist. In this case, if you are buried in medical debt, it has a bad impact on your PHYSICIAL wellbeing.
This study in JAMA released on Monday has a simple premise- Medical debt negatively impacts health.
The authors found the following:
a 1–percentage point increase in the population with medical debt was associated with
18.3 more physically unhealthy days per 1000 people during the past month
17.9 more mentally unhealthy days per 1000 people during the past month,
1.12 years of life lost per 1000 people,
An increase of 7.51 per 100 000 person-years in age-adjusted all-cause mortality rate.
These findings suggest that medical debt is associated with worse health status, more premature deaths, and higher mortality rates at the county level in the US. Therefore, policies increasing access to affordable health care, such as expanding health insurance coverage, may improve population health.
The emphasis on suggest is mine because REAL medical papers are written in soft language, "Suggest", "Imply", "Infer" etc as opposed to the fraudulent medical advertisements that use words like "Prove", "Conclusive", "Irrefutable"
Forgive the digression. Back to the main point.
Policies that force people to carry medical debt have a MEASURABLE and NEGATIVE effect on health.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2815530?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=030424\
