[TMWNN]

>An obvious counter observation: Isn’t an extended medical issue likely to cause a person to lose their job and health insurance?

You are correct in that most US health insurance is tied to employment. But the discussion point was the claim that "[insert high percentage here] of US bankruptcies are because of medical bills".

Any illness, extended long enough, is going to cause people to lose their jobs, whether in the US or elsewhere. Certainly any illness long enough to exhaust COBRA coverage. That said, in the US that's where Medicaid will step in, assuming that the loss of income is sufficient to trigger Medicaid's income-based eligibility.

[thephyber]

If you have an illness long enough to lose your job and your health insurance, you probably aren’t able to pay all of your bills. Hence medical bills are likely a distal cause.

[TMWNN]

Right. But, again, a) the job loss is going to happen anywhere, in or out of the US, and b) having medical bills among the debts one can't pay without a job is not the same thing as "American with job gets hangnail = bankruptcy!!!", which is what one would believe based on the typical rhetoric on the subject.