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asymmetricinfo's profile
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Verified account
@asymmetricinfo

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Megan McArdleVerified account

@asymmetricinfo

Columnist at the Washington Post. Opinions my own. Email me: Megan.McArdle -at- http://washpost.com  Buy my book, The Up Side of Down http://amzn.to/1a3i2tK 

Washington, DC
Joined September 2008

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    1. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      Since everyone is @'ing me on the dispute between the Bernie campaign and our Fact Checker on medical bankruptcy, I will make a few brief notes.

      57 replies 63 retweets 178 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      First, the researchers whom Sanders is relying are the cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization which long predates (https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1987/07/08/357987.html …) their interest in bankruptcy, medical or otherwise.

      11 replies 11 retweets 56 likes
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    3. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      They're activists. There's nothing wrong with being activists. But they are not disinterested researchers, and you shouldn't treat their work as if they were.

      23 replies 11 retweets 101 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      Second, their work appears to be purpose-built to deliver the result that all bankruptcies are caused by medical events.

      10 replies 9 retweets 65 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      Third, Woolhandler and Himmelstein have not been as strenuous as they might in correcting the incredibly common misreading of their work, in which careless readers transmogrify "illness related" into "caused by medical bills".

      3 replies 9 retweets 60 likes
      Show this thread
      Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

      Those are not the same thing. Canada has medical bankruptcy, despite "medicare for all", because if you get sick and can't work, and you have a lot of debt, things go south pretty quick.

      12:51 PM - 3 Sep 2019
      • 21 Retweets
      • 106 Likes
      • RodKirkpatrick,JD🇺🇲❤🇺🇲 Patrick Sullivan Larry Thompson ice9 Lynnanne123 Nate - RevengeSZN2021 serendipitousP Lee Lange romey
      54 replies 21 retweets 106 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          Which is how we get to the statistic--falsified *even by the studies that allegedly support it*--that more than half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.

          5 replies 13 retweets 71 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          Note that these studies do not say that the bankruptcies are caused by medical bills; their design can't possibly establish causation. But somehow people get that impression! Multiple times! And no one really corrects it! It is a puzzle!

          3 replies 12 retweets 82 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          A couple more notes: first, the studies they did showed that having insurance did very little to protect you from a medical bankruptcy (under their definition of a medical bankruptcy).

          3 replies 9 retweets 60 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          They say that shows that American health insurance is garbage. I say that shows their data is garbage.

          19 replies 8 retweets 87 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          There is a non-trivial difference between having a high deductible and being on the hook for the entire cost of your quadruple bypass. If your study doesn't detect one, you did something wrong. Whatever you're studying, it isn't "medical bankruptcy".

          26 replies 12 retweets 101 likes
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        7. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          Or at least, you're not studying medical bankruptcy, caused by *medical bills*, which is the only problem that their national health program can solve. No health insurance program in the world fixes the problems of a self-employed plumber with a $500k house and multiple sclerosis

          12 replies 10 retweets 86 likes
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        8. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          To believe that all of the "medical bankruptcies" they found are caused by medical bills--in the sense of "none of these people would have declared bankruptcy except for having high medical bills"--you have to believe that income loss is irrelevant.

          4 replies 10 retweets 75 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          But also you have to believe that in the entire united states, only about 250k people declare bankruptcy for every other reason: job loss, divorce, small business failure, predatory lending, fraud, etc. Does that seem ... likely?

          6 replies 7 retweets 63 likes
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        10. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          Keeping in mind that the majority of the very-high-cost patients are ... already on Medicare? Because they're old?

          5 replies 7 retweets 50 likes
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        11. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          That stat should never have passed the sniff test. It's crazy.

          3 replies 6 retweets 59 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          This is not to say that medical bills never cause bankruptcies, or that that isn't a problem worth addressing. But 500k is way too high for that number.

          9 replies 7 retweets 52 likes
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        13. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          Not least because bankruptcy is almost always multi-factorial. It's people who had a lot of debt and *then* got divorced, or sick, or fired, or sued. If they hadn't piled on the payments, they wouldn't be bankrupt, and also, if they hadn't been unlucky, they wouldn't be bankrupt.

          20 replies 8 retweets 71 likes
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        14. Megan McArdle‏Verified account @asymmetricinfo 3 Sep 2019

          There's this endless debate in bankruptcy that boils down to "unlucky or unwise?" and the answer is "Embrace the healing power of 'and' ".

          60 replies 19 retweets 130 likes
          Show this thread
        15. End of conversation

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