19 percent of US households had medical debt in 2017, according to a US Census Bureau report released in April, and the median amount owed was $2,000 for those who were fully insured and $3,000 for those who were not.
9 percent of people with health insurance reported they had declared bankruptcy due to medical bills at some point, with 2 percent doing so in the last year. This equates to some 530,000 people filing for bankruptcy in the US every year.
Infant loss in the US is not uncommon: each year, more than 21,000 children die before their first birthday, and birth defects, preterm birth, maternal pregnancy complications, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and injuries such as suffocation are the main causes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 24,000 babies are stillborn each year – dying after 20 weeks’ gestation, according to the CDC. People of colour are disproportionately affected by both tragedies – the infant mortality rate and the stillbirth rate for Black Americans is more than double that of white Americans.
In the US, there is no paid leave provision for parents following the death of a child. India has offered women who experience miscarriage or stillbirth up to six weeks of paid leave since 1961. New Zealand had become the second country to guarantee mothers and their partners three paid days off from work after a miscarriage or stillbirth.
The cruel financial cost of losing a child in the US | US & Canada | Al Jazeera
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