Myth and Measurement — The Case of Medical Bankruptcies

To the Editor: Dobkin et al.¹ have made an important contribution in clarifying the relationship between health shocks and economic risk; like us, they have shown that health crises have major economic consequences for families and that even the insured are not adequately protected. However, in their Perspective article (March 22 issue),² they mischaracterize our studies implicating medical problems as contributors to approximately 60% of personal bankruptcies,^3,4 and their claim that medical bankruptcies are uncommon rests on methodologic choices that do not capture all medical causes of bankruptcy. Contrary to their claim that our inferences about the causal relationship between . . .