As filings soar, so does bankruptcy's personal toll

As filings soar, so does bankruptcy's personal toll
By Darrell Smith - dvsmith@sacbee.com

Last Updated 12:18 am PDT Thursday, May 8, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1



The saddest hour of Mary Smith's day started at 4 p.m. inside a hearing room at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Sacramento. In just minutes, she would publicly reveal to everyone assembled how deeply mired she is in money problems.

Smith, a substance abuse counselor and mother of two, owes $38,000 to credit card companies, her checking account is frozen, and PG&E is threatening to turn off the lights on the home she shares with her disabled mother, an uncle and her two teenagers.

Her brief appearance in Bankruptcy Court three weeks ago stemmed from debts that she says escalated while she was on disability leave to beat kidney cancer.

Smith and dozens of others like her appear daily in U.S. Trustee Hearing Room 7-B, swelling the Bankruptcy Court docket over the past two years amid a well-documented collapse in the subprime mortgage market that has struck California and Florida hardest of all.

Declaring bankruptcy, Smith said, is the only way to salvation. "I've got two liens on my home for bills I can't pay. I've got no bank account. And I had to borrow money to pay (my attorney). I waited way too long, and now I have nothing."

more...

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/921719.html

The law must be reversed, and a health care plan enacted.

and it would be so easy to say damn the politicians in this country for NOT suppling health insurance for all, not just the wealthy.
I have a friend who has had two cancer surgeries in the last 8 years, one of the brain.....she is having to stay at a horrible job, just because of her PRE existing condition will not allow her to work elsewhere, and still have health insurance. Hers is but one of many.

Trustees have been known to confiscate them right then and there...