It’s not unusual to see GoFundMe or other crowdfunding efforts for someone who, facing a catastrophic health crisis, can’t afford to pay their rent or mortgage. But until now, those incidents remained anecdotal.

But a study released this year by Emily A. Gallagher, Radhakrishnan Gopalan, and Michal Grinstein-Weis, professors and researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, Washington University’s Olin Business School and Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work (Grinstein-Wise is also the Associate Dean for Policy Initiatives at Washington University), respectively, reveals that data clearly indicates a relationship between having health insurance and being able to make your rent or mortgage payment.

But the data doesn’t just tell the story of people with catastrophic illnesses, but also the cascading issues that can occur from just being sick and missing work a few days, when an insured person might be able to see a doctor for more immediate relief.

“When people think of health insurance, they often think of its effect on health. They may even they go a step further and think about its effects on a person’s medical expenses and their medical debt,” the three explained in a synopsis of the study. “Our study says that health insurance has significant downstream benefits to a person’s finances that show up in their home payments.”

“These indirect benefits may not be so salient to health policymakers, but they are extremely important to the overall financial stability of the person,” they continued. “On top of this, they carry broader economic implications.” (more…)