Medical issues and foreclosure

Health Care and Foreclosure Connection: From a recent study: (see link at bottom for more info)

Half of all respondents (49%) indicated that their foreclosure was caused in part by a medical problem, including illness or injuries (32%), unmanageable medical bills (23%), lost work due to a medical problem (27%), or caring for sick family members (14%). We also examined objective indicia of medical disruptions in the previous two years, including those respondents paying more than $2,000 of medical bills out of pocket (37%), those losing two or more weeks of work because of injury or illness (30%), those currently disabled and unable to work (8%), and those who used their home equity to pay medical bills (13%). Altogether, we found that about 7 in 10 of our respondents either self-reported a medical cause of foreclosure, or experienced one of these indicia of medical disruptions in the years before foreclosure.

Get Sick, Get Out: The Medical Causes of Home Mortgage Foreclosures
By Christopher Tarver Robertson, Richard Egelhof, & Michael HokeHealth MatrixVol. 18:65 2008

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2008/10/06/medical-causes-of-home-mortgage-foreclosures/