raving lunacy - oxymorons for the 21st century

According to this release:

The proportion of working-age Americans who have medical bill problems or who are paying off medical debt climbed from 34 percent to 41 percent between 2005 and 2007, bringing the total to 72 million, according to recent survey findings from The Commonwealth Fund. In addition, 7 million adults age 65 and over also had problems paying medical bills, for a total of 79 million adults with medical bill problems or medical debt.

Brings new meaning to the concept Working to Death.
It gets worse.

Other key survey findings include:

* Among the medical bill problems reported in the survey: 28 percent are paying off medical bills over time, up from 21 percent in 2005, and 27 percent of adults under age 65 said they had problems paying or were unable to pay their bills in 2007, up from 23 percent in 2005.

* More than half (53%) of insured working-age adults who have deductibles that represent 5 percent or more of their income reported medical bill burdens and debt; one-third of adults with lower deductibles face these kinds of difficulties.

* While adults in families with incomes under $20,000 a year report the highest rates of lacking coverage during the year, more adults in moderate income families are going without insurance. In 2007, 41 percent of adults in families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year reported a time uninsured during the year, up from 28 percent in 2001.

* Most people who were uninsured at any point in the last year are in working families. Of the estimated 50 million American adults who were uninsured in the last year, 58% were in families where at least one person was working full-time.

* People who are uninsured or underinsured experience inefficient care; nearly half of adults (47%) under age 65 who had gaps in their health insurance or were underinsured reported they had experienced problems such as test results not being available on time, receiving duplicate medical tests, and delays in receiving results of abnormal test results; in contrast just 26 percent of adults who are adequately insured reported these inefficiencies.
Source: EurekAlert.org

The Commonwealth Fund Report announcement is here The report in PDF is Here