Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical debt

:{{la|Medical debt}} ([{{fullurl:Medical debt|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical debt}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

Article serves as stealth spam or WP:COATRACK for a predatory corporation. Not encyclopedic; medical debt is debt incurred from medical costs is hardly worthy of its own article. No sources. Deprodded. Abductive (talk) 04:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 04:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
• Redirect to Health insurance. Anything that is encyclopaedic about this topic can be better covered there. Thryduulf (talk) 13:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
• I wouldn't object to WhatamIdoing's suggested target of Health economics. Thryduulf (talk) 17:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect to more appropriate article, perhaps Health economics. Wikipedia should have an article whose major point is that the goods and services involved in healthcare are not free, but this isn't that article. Whatever article it's redirected to, it should include debt (and taxes, and insurance, and bankrupt healthcare facilities) as an issue, but place that debt in the overall context of healthcare costs, instead of isolating it like this article does (which is to say that if the article rescue effort is successful, the page will need to be moved to something like Cost of healthcare.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
• Keep The concerning spam objection from the nominator seems to have been taken care of. What remains IMO is likely a very noteable subject deserving its own article. Im running out of wikki time for 2day, but plan to exspand the article probably tommorow. If i cant find any useable sources I'll withdraw my vote, just voting now in case there might be an early closure for deletion. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Health economics is more about the economics field rather than its impact on individuals; I don't think it is a good redirect or merge target. A related topic would be Uninsured in the United States, but a redirect there would fail to give a global coverage of the issue. "Personal debt" redirects to Consumer debt, which covers debt much more from a credit angle, whereas medical care is not an optional purchase. My feeling is that this issue deserves treating independently, but I need to do some searching first. Fences&Windows 18:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

:Well, from a fairly quick look, the topic does warrant coverage on its own. All the sources I found were US-based, so we may have trouble coming up with a global perspective. It is a significant social issue, leading to a lot of personal bankruptcies - 60% of them.[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/05/earlyshow/health/main5064981.shtml] Most other developed countries have some form of national health coverage so medical debt isn't such an issue, but medical costs and debts are also an issue in developing countries, where simple illnesses aren't treated as the patient cannot afford it, and increasing privatisation is an issue.[http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)05975-X/fulltext] Perhaps Cost of healthcare would be a better title, focussing on the costs of healthcare to patients rather than issues of cost-effectiveness, drug pricing etc. Here are some sources I found on medical debt: [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1492479][http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1932186920080820][http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/40/20/16][http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/837_Doty_seeing_red_medical_debt.pdf][http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/09/medical_debt_ho.html][http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/health/25patient.html][http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/23/hospital-sued-for-charging-patients-18-interest/][http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001965063_bankruptcies25m.html][http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2009/02/15/paring_medical_debt.ART_ART_02-15-09_D1_S6CT22R.html?sid=101][http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/16/AR2007011601103_pf.html][http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/american_journal_of_medicine_09.pdf][http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/January/13/Medical-Debt.aspx][http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/25/2/w89][http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/24/4/1106] Fences&Windows 20:41, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

::I agree that there are sources, how could there not be? But Health economics certainly needs expansion and would treat the topic in context. Abductive (talk) 21:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

:::I really don't think that Health economics is an appropriate place to write about this. That article is about the economics discipline, with discussion of QALYs and cost-effectiveness; the cost to patients of health care is something else entirely. An article on the cost to patients can encompass medical debt, alongside direct-to-user costs such as prescription charges in the UK, or taxation, etc. But medical debt could easily stand on its own as a subject, there's no reason to argue for deletion. Fences&Windows 00:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

::::I still think it needs to be treated elsewhere. Abductive (talk) 01:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::I agree with you about context, yesterday i had a quick search through some of the papers and external web links on the Health economics page and couldn't find anything about medical debt. It might be just a tangential issue and challenging to add to the economics article while complying with no OR / Synth. I was surprised to see how big an issue it is in the US , with extensive coverage in sources exclusively dedicated to the subject. Maybe if you have a chance to look at the article now its improved you might be up for changing your position? Ive tried to show it in context to the wider issues with wikki links and stuff. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:30, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::I did [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=Bankruptcy+health+care+debt+costs+coverage+plan+reform+expenses+financial+insurance+insured+medical&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images this Google search] for the following words from the article; bankruptcy health care debt costs coverage plan reform expenses financial insurance insured medical, limited to Wikipedia only. The only two mainspace results that were returned were Health care in the United States and Social Security (United States). Therefore I suggest that this article be merged to Health care in the United States. Abductive (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::: Good find, I'll cross link to that. We'd have no problems merging to Health care in the United States on OR/ synth grounds. However the article is already over 100KBs, above the reccomended size for splitting to smaller more specific articles. So I still think we should ideally retain the medical debt article with its current title. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. The subject stands on its own, and there is no good argument for deletion. Merging or widening the scope is something we can consider, but AfD is not the place to discuss that. We now have a sourced stub to work from and improve. Fences&Windows 21:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
• This is a good place to discuss that, we're all here. I am pleased that the article is now on enough watchlists that predatory companies won't be able to slip their urls in there. I doubt that the closing admin will impose a merge. But is there any place to merge it to? Or anything else it can be named? If not, don't forget to link it to articles in which the term occurs. Abductive (talk) 21:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
• Keep Good job of improvement. Notable topic in its own right, apart from more general topics. Health Care in the US is a very broad topic indeed, and it would not be appropriate to merge every problem with heath care into it. Rather, develop this one. Fences & Windows has already found some of the probably dozens more good specific sources. The original nomination was appropriate for the state of the article at the time. DGG (talk) 03:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.