Many opponents to Obamacare advocate high-deductible plans and consumerism as the solution to our health care crisis, opposing benefit mandates, etc.

But how do you solve this problem, documented in The American Journal of Medicine?

“Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.”

In short, most bankruptcies were the result of medical bills, and most of the people who went bankrupt due to medical bills already had health insurance.

A second question – why is it that health costs in the United States are so much higher than they are in single-payer countries like Canada? If markets and HDHPs are really the best way to reduce costs, why are our costs so much higher in the U.S. than anywhere else?