Aug 30, 2022

Question of the Day: What percent of American adults are carrying medical debt?

It's often cited in surveys as the #1 cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. How prevalent do you think medical debt is for American adults? 

Answer: 41%

 Questions: 

  • What do you think are the types of bills that lead to medical debt? Answer here. 
  • Do you think people with health insurance are more or less likely to have medical debt? 
  • What percent of adults with medical debt owe more than $2,500? Answer here.

Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.

Behind the numbers (KFF.org): 

Beyond the 41% of adults who currently have some form of health care debt, a further 16% of adults say they have had debt due to medical or dental bills in the past five years that has since been paid off.1 This means in total, most adults (57%) have experienced owing money due to medical or dental bills at some point in the past five years.

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Want to deepen your content knowledge about insurance? Sign-up for NGPF's Insurance Certification Course (no cost!) with classes starting the week of September 12th.  

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 More than 500 Questions of the Day to choose from in NGPF's QoD Library

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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