EllingFamily:TogetherWeThrive

March 22, 2005 I went to speak with my congressman Tom Latham about the Bankruptcy Bill that is heading through the House of Representatives. It has already been passed in the Senate. The reason this affects me as a testicular cancer survivor is that it limits my ability to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy if I ever go into debt due to a catastrophic illness, instead the bill in its current form would apply a mean scoring template to bankruptcy filers to determine if they can repay their debt.

Over 50% of bankruptcy filings according to a Harvard University research are due to a catastrophic illness where an individual becomes trapped in loads of debt due to enormous medical bills and lost wages from either being fired of missing work. Under the current bill passed by the Senate and likely to be passed by the House, bankruptcy judges would not be able to consider catastrophic medical costs when coming to a decision. Also most patients overloaded with medical would have to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy where they would be over laden with debt for years because of their illness because under the means test they would not qualify for a chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. This correlates to national statistics where 41% of men must quit their jobs when under going cancer treatment and 39% of women also must quit. Unfortunately, many of those in the middle class with some medical insurance stricken with a catastrophic illness could be forced into Chapter 13 bankruptcy because they will not be able to pay their bills due to the downward spiral of living off of credit cards while being short of funds due to not working because of illness.

After talking with Congressman Latham, he understood my concern and said he would see what he could do to rectify the situation. He indicated that the Bankruptcy Bill would probably pass in its current form but he indicated that he was going to try and do something via additional legislation.

**Update the Bankruptcy Bill passed in both the house and the senate without amendment. The bill was also signed into law this past week by President Bush.