CDC: Medical bills strain many US families

More than one in four American families struggled to pay their medical bills in 2012, and one in 10 said they had medical bills they couldn’t pay at all, new data show.

According to a survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2012, 26.8 percent of people reached by CDC interviewers said they experienced some type of financial burden due to medical bills in the previous year.

The survey found that the lack of health insurance increased the burden of medical costs, but 21 percent of US families in which all members were insured reported having trouble paying medical bills.

Among adults in families in which some people were insured and others were not, 46 percent experienced some type of financial burden due to the cost of medical care, the survey found.

Results from the survey show that a crushing medical bill can cause money problems not just for a cash-strapped patient but for his or her entire family.

“When one family member experiences a financial burden of medical care, the entire family may be at risk for financial burden,” noted Robin A. Cohen and Whitney K. Kirzinger, the authors of the report.

The Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare , is aimed at offering “affordable” coverage for low-wage Americans. However, policy experts have warned that the law would fail in reaching its objective.

Critics of the healthcare law have argued that the new public exchange plans could make matters worse, by exposing moderate-income families with exchange plans to out-of-pocket cost levels that are much higher than the levels required by typical group health policies.