Many younger Tennesseans may not think much about the price of prescription drugs, but older Tennesseans know better; they are well aware of just how expensive a few pills can be. It’s not unheard of for people to use thousands of dollars worth of prescription drugs each year. When those costs are largely covered by an insurer, the costs can be managed. But when the insurance stops, the cost can become crippling.
How big is the issue? According to the federal government, Americans spent more than $40 billion on out-of-pocket prescription-drug costs in 2013. That’s a healthy chunk of change.
Experts do not think that those costs will disappear with the expansion of the Affordable Care Act. These experts are skeptical because of a trend in the insurance market: that insured people are being forced to pay a bigger and bigger percentage of their health-insurance costs, including their prescriptions.
That trend makes it all the more important for Tennesseans to learn strategies for keeping medical costs down. Yet many Tennesseans know little about doing that. For example, many people do not know about the many health-insurance terms that govern what treatments and prescriptions are or are not covered. The inability to decipher these terms can lead Tennesseans to make decisions they would not otherwise make. Those decisions can have a major effect on a person’s financial health.
Like those above, Tennesseans who find themselves suffocating under the weight of their medical debt may want to consider whether filing for bankruptcy is right for them. To learn more about the pros and cons of bankruptcy, Tennesseans may benefit from speaking with an experienced bankruptcy attorney.
Source: CNBC, “Medication costs fuel painful medical debt, bankruptcies,” Dan Mangan, accessed on Aug. 18, 2015
