Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans
For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy. The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.
... among other things, longer waits for full Social Security benefits, the replacement of employer-provided pensions with 401(k) savings plans and more out-of-pocket spending on health care. Declining incomes, whether in retirement or leading up to it, compound the challenge.
“You can manage O.K. until there is a little stumble,” said Deborah Thorne, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Idaho and an author of the study. “It doesn’t even take a big thing.”
Older Americans typically turn to Medicare to pay their medical bills. But gaps in coverage, high premiums ... the Kaiser Family Foundation found. By 2013, the average Medicare beneficiary’s out-of-pocket spending on health care consumed 41 percent of the average Social Security check, according to Kaiser, which also estimated that the figure would rise.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/business/bankruptcy-older-americans.html
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President Obama, in his 2009 State of the Union address, said that a medical bankruptcy occurred every 30 seconds.
https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-statistics-4154729
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because Ronnie Reagan said so....................and it was during that time they jacked up the requirement for SS....................and the country got to bail out the savings and loan and then ever since except when the deficit was paid off and we had surplus ....this country went to war, and most "average citizens, if married got $1200.00 back and blew a hole in the deficit ...................and then there is what the republican controlled congress did with health care...................blew a hole ........................
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/27/16040284/senate-republicans-health-care-lies
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/america-party-less-caring-21-century-republicans-gop
https://www.npr.org/2012/08/06/157063512/american-dream-betrayed-by-bad-economic-policy
