Cindy Zeldin works for Demos, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. She says even the insured are not immune from this growing trend.
"The direction of health insurance is towards greater individual risk, greater out-of-pocket expenses and those expenses are going right on to credit cards," she says.
According to a recent study by Demos and the Access Project, 29 percent of low and middle-income households with credit card debt had medical bills to blame. These households carried an average $11,623 debt, compared with $7,964 for those without medical debt.
