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In a recent update to a previous study, Himmelstein
et al (2009) concluded that in 2007, uninsured medical expenses
or loss of income due to illness "caused" nearly two-thirds
(62.1 percent) of all non-business bankruptcies in the United
States. The authors blame this on America's pluralistic health
insurance system. Himmelstein and co-author Woolhandler are
well-known proponents of Canada's government-run, single-payer
medical insurance system. The implicit assumption of their study
is that a single-payer system would have prevented or
significantly reduced the number of bankruptcies observed in the
United States. Following this logic, we should expect to observe
a lower rate of bankruptcy in Canada compared to the United
States, all else being equal. Yet the most recent data shows that
the non-business bankruptcy rate in Canada is statistically the
same as it is in the United States.
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