[smcl]

Going back to comparison between US and its "peer nations" though - I would imagine in this group of countries the concept of medical bankruptcy is largely unknown given that many have socialised healthcare.

For example I'm sure there are people in the UK who have turned to the private sector for treatment and in doing so incurred debts which resulted in bankruptcy. But that's such an exceptional unusual concept I'd be surprised if it occurred more than a handful of times in any given year.

[rcafdm]

The point is that almost all of what people have termed "medical bankruptcy" has approximately nothing to do with healthcare costs. It has to do with income/career disruption associated with their health, so these issues play out to a similar degree in other countries for similar reasons.

While I can believe there is somewhat higher variance in the US system in terms of bills/prices/etc, which sometimes affects people meaningfully, it's also worth pointing out that out of pocket costs aren't unusually high in the United States. I mean, we might have a slightly larger problem with these, but that's much more of an implementation detail in terms of who pays and how much than the sort of top-down policy proposals some people seem to believe are necessary (because they've badly misdiagnosed the situation or are ideologically blinkered)