Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
While I will strongly agree with you that many people live outside their means and spend every penny they earn medical bills and insurance are two separate things. What about what Boneprone says? His daughter had medical problems and the bill was 378K and the insurance decided no to pay. That is a lot more common than people know. There are many people who get injured or sick and accumulate a lot of medical bills then the insurance doesn't pay them and you are screwed.
Take the average family in this country. That means they have 2 adults and 2 kids and they have an average annual income of 50K pre-tax. So if they live in an average house and don't drive any kind of fancy cars and they live well within their means and put 10% of their income away each year in savings so they are doing well by most people's standards. If you drop 100-150K in medical bill debt on them they would be in trouble. They might be able to pay it off over time, but there would most likely be wage garnishments and all kinds of financial troubles.
Everyday in this country insurance companies deny claims. If you are denied you have two choices. You can either just pay the bill yourself or you can hire a lawyer to fight the insurance company. If the medical problem has strapped you financially to begin with you probably can't afford the lawyer.
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This is all very true.
It's easy for someone who has been successful and has alot of cash in the bank to look down their nose at the average middle class guy who can't seem to get ahead.
Everyone wants to blame people living beyond their means etc....and in certain cases that's true, but for the vast majority of the middle class it's not.
If you're really interested in this subject (I was) do a google or youtube search for Elizabeth Warren. She's a harvard economics professor who has done alot of research on bankruptcy and the middle class.
This whole "people are irresponsible" line is propaganda that's been generated by the banks and credit card companies. They take the most egregious cases of irresponsibility and try to make the public believe that everyone in bankruptcy behaved that way. That's how they were able to get congress to pass bankruptcy reform....which put alot more money in their pockets.