[ghshephard]

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))

[anamax]

> 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.