Originally published July 1 2004
Medical debt burdens 20 million U.S. families
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The average American household is broke: steeped in credit card bills, personal debt and, it turns out, medical debt. Sadly, they're foregoing purchases of food and housing to cover medical bills. This is just part of the impact of national health care crisis, where costs are skyrocketing, prescription drugs are impossible for the average Joe to afford, and an alarming lack of health insurance denies coverage to more than forty million Americans.
- Ten leading consumer, physicians, and safety groups are renewing an annual call to ban consumer fireworks, which they say cause more fires on Independence Day in the United States than all other causes of fire combined.
- In 2002, eight of nine firework-related trips to hospital emergency rooms involved fireworks that were legal for consumers to use, according to a statement from the groups, which include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the International Association of Fire Fighters.
- About 71 percent of victims are male, mostly between the ages of 10 and 19.
- In 1999, the latest year for which there are statistics, 24,200 fires were reportedly started by fireworks.
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