639
‘Don’t get sick. It’s too expensive’: medical debt is putting more Americans in financial crisis
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
639 points (99.2% liked)
News
23287 readers
3901 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I remember when we bought a house 8 years ago (seems like a lifetime now) talking to the mortgage broker and he basically said they straight-up ignore medical debt because everyone has it and nobody would ever get a loan if it was considered. It's utterly insane to me how the wealthiest nation in the world can't keep its citizens healthy and out of debt.
They can, but the current system is far more profitable.
But it can. The wealthiest nation in the world per capita is Luxembourg; then Switzerland. I think Norway finishes the top three. Excellent medical systems.
CUBA's consolidated single-payer healthcare system beats the US's #30 rank. And does it far, far cheaper. https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world/
As Jeff Daniels says in the first act of the first episode of Newsroom, " Yosemite?"
Won't someone PLEASE think of the shareholders?!
yes they do it cheaper because people aren't afraid of going to the doctor and getting a $500 bill because the doctor's assistant that was there for 10 minutes is out of network
In Switzerland healthcare, is not bad but expensive. Insurance is mandatory and the same fee for every income. I pay about 12-16% of my gross income for the health of my family. Oh, and this is with the hospitals (and other things) highly subsidized with tax money. Health costs are problematic for the middle class.
That's lucky of you. Many do take it into account.
What's nuts is that the majority of people declaring bankruptcy because of medical debt have insurance.
The credit agencies do this, too. Medical debt is either not counted against your credit score or is weighted so little it won't affect much.
It makes perfect sense, because it's not an accurate depiction of your credit seeking habits. It is debt that you did not choose to take on.
oh this guy is nearly dead lets take him to money-bags medical