You're going to hear a lot about health care in the run up to the 2020 election. That's because millions of us have medical bills that are putting us under financial stress.
The research says 137 million of us reported "medical financial hardship in the last year. Another study found one in five potential millennial home buyers are bogged down by medical debt. Financial Planner Bill Dendy tells KTRH the news gets worse the deeper you dive.
"Two-thirds of all bankruptcies are because of medical debt. One-third of those with medical debt are denied mortgages, or even the ability to rent a home," Dendy explained.
So is medical debt the next financial crisis?
"When a person can't pay their medical expenses, they are not consuming other areas. It does create this challenge of the multiplication of the negative impact," Dendy said, adding that Obamacare hasn't fixed the problem.
And, to make matters even worse, research released earlier this year shows a one-thousand dollar emergency would push about 60% of us into debt.