WASHINGTON – Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former US senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, said bankruptcy laws should be changed to provide relief for people overburdened with medical debt.
“Until our nation implements systemic health reform and ensures that coverage and care are truly affordable, we must open new avenues for families struggling under crushing medical debts,” Mrs Edwards, who has breast cancer, said in testimony to a Senate judiciary subcommittee examining medical debt yesterday in Washington.
Mrs Edwards, a bankruptcy attorney who works on healthcare issues as a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, told the panel that medical expenses were a major factor in almost two-thirds of bankruptcy filings.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the subcommittee on administrative oversight and the courts, has proposed legislation that would waive procedural hurdles, such as credit counselling requirements and a means test, for bankruptcy filers with medical debt.
The measure would also make it easier for medical debtors to keep their homes in bankruptcy.
Mr Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said his measure would change the bankruptcy code that currently “does not distinguish between debtors driven into bankruptcy by medical bills and those who become insolvent through poor planning or reckless spending”. – (Bloomberg)