And people are complaining that the crash was caused by under-regulation? How about first removing all the laws which force banks to lend money to folks who are unworthy of credit?
Prior to 2007, the majority of Bankruptcies in the United States were a result of medical bills. Without socialized medicine, and a leaky private insurance system, getting seriously ill in the United States basically wiped you out financially.
This is actually one thing that I've never been able to make people from countries that have socialized medicine believe.
The sheer _concept_ of an illness wiping you out financially is typically beyond their comprehension. Most people in the United States without that experience also have a tough time understanding it as well.
Suggesting people can never get a reasonable loan because of a bankruptcy, and therefore likely because of an illness, is a little much.
You do maintain a running credit record that should accurately reflect your (illness free) creditworthiness.
(Disclaimer: I'm a Canadian working Silicon Valley with excellent medical insurance who has never had a hospital stay or need to call on said-insurance (knock-on-wood))
> Prior to 2007, the majority of Bankruptcies in the United States were a result of medical bills.
Not so fast.
The "study" that supposedly found that actually didn't. At most, it found that folks who went into bankruptcy had medical bills. They also had car payments, house payments or rent payments, and so on.
When you're going broke, bills for everything start piling up.
Do you apply your indignation to bankruptcy to all cases? After all, bankruptcy is used strategically in business situations by everyone from General Motors, to airlines, to Donald Trump who usually come back with even larger undertakings, and often with more profits.
Yeah, and let's bring back debtors prisons while we are at it...
The general idea of these laws is that 7-10 years is a long-enough window into a persons financial state and habits to determine their current credit-worthiness and limiting this look-back window prevents lenders from subverting the purpose of US bankruptcy laws. There are no laws that force banks to lend money to people, only laws that limit the duration of certain items on your credit record.
And people are complaining that the crash was caused by under-regulation? How about first removing all the laws which force banks to lend money to folks who are unworthy of credit?