Sick, uninsured and in debt: One man's health care crisis

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http://www.detnews.com/article/20100315/LIFESTYLE03/3150338/Sick--uninsured-and-in-debt--One-man-s-health-care-crisis

Last Updated: March 15. 2010 8:42AM
Sick, uninsured and in debt: One man's health care crisis
Christina Rogers / The Detroit News


One afternoon, Kirk Miller, a 26-year-old with an easy smile and a quick wit, sat at his coffee table trying to make sense of the medical debt he has accumulated in the last few years.

Dozens of medical bills were strewn across the table. More bulged from an accordion folder with the heft of a bowling ball bag that he lugs around his modest rental home. And more bills were coming in every day.

Bills for emergency room visits, specialists and doctors he doesn't even remember seeing. Past-due notices. Final notices. Collection companies hounding him and calling his phone so often that he assigned them their own ring tone, the theme music from the horror-flick "Friday the 13th."

"It's not that I don't want to pay them," said Miller, an Eastpointe resident who suffers a chronic illness. "But I owe so much I won't ever be able to put a dent in them."

Miller estimated his medical tab at above $350,000 last fall, but he didn't know for sure. His tally included a $319,103.48 hospital bill from 2008 when he was uninsured and recovering from emergency surgery. He only recently learned that that bill was erroneous and his actual debt is closer to $30,000, but the financial pressures remain and he is considering filing for personal bankruptcy.

Miller's predicament is extreme, but not rare, and illustrates the financial and emotional quagmire of uninsured people facing serious illnesses. His story reflects the inequity of health care coverage in the United States and in Michigan, where the prolonged recession has cast more than a quarter of its residents under age 65 into the ranks of the uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008. His situation also stands out because he owes tens of thousands of dollars -- most medical debts total less than $10,000, experts say -- and because he's young and his medical condition is severe. He suffers from a blood disorder -- neutropenia -- that weakens his immune system and increases his risk of developing serious infections.

Today, after a long, emotionally taxing journey, Miller's story offers a lesson for others struggling to pay mounting medical bills.

"He's a good guy. He's not trying to freeload," said Dr. David Siegel, a surgeon in Madison Heights who met Miller in 2006 when he removed his spleen. "When it comes down to it, you could find Kirk's story at every hospital in the city."

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