woman pushing away vaccine With the massive deductible staring them down, HDHP members tend to delay or skip care, leading to worse outcomes. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Open enrollment season has just wrapped up. Across the country, health care consumers have signed up for health plans that — if nuances aren't understood — could bankrupt them.

Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. And of the millions of people who are victims of health care oppression, 72% owe less than $10,000 and 75% of people with medical debt had health insurance. A high-deductible health plan (HDHP) can have a family deductible of up to $14,100 — creating plenty of space to get trapped under medical debt.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Consumer Driven Health Care
Core and Group Health
Employee-Paid
Employer-Paid