Current Events > People spend their tax refund on health care

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.axios.com/people-spend-their-tax-refunds-at-the-doctor-1515591001-35e4b105-ff85-4783-a400-887951bdaa8a.html?source=sidebar

The bottom line: People put off health care services based on their ability to pay.

The details:

Out-of-pocket health care spending rose by 60% in the week following a tax refund, according to a JPMorgan survey of more than 1 million checking accounts.

Most of that extra spending is in-person payments to providers in other words, people are mostly using their extra cash to go to the doctor, not just to make other payments.

Health care spending remained higher for about 75 days after getting a tax refund, then returned to normal.

Payments using debit cards spiked by more than 80%. Credit card payments didnt change.

The bottom line: That has some pretty significant implications as the system keeps heading toward insurance plans with higher out-of-pocket costs.

The headline isn't very surprising, but the size and duration of the effect might be larger than you'd expect. A 60% increase in out of pocket spending for health care in the week after the refund seems insane (though I'd like to see how it compares to other kinds of increases in consumption in the same time frame)
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