Another sticky subject is if and how much do you bail out people and business that go broke when it is entirely their own fault. Or is it better to let the market weed out the winners and losers.
Living frugal, practical, saving money and raising healthy children
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I propose that the medical bill was just the straw that broke the camel's back. The people that are unable to pay that bill are already in trouble with others.
I don't know that that's true. If you were to get some such disease as cancer where the treatment was needed on a consistent basis I think you'd find the medical bills would add up pretty quickly.
(broken link removed to http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_109143.html)
The link shows that most medical bankruptcies involve people who actually have health insurance. I'm a fairly libertarian do for yourself kind of guy but I find it disturbing that people go bankrupt in this nation because of illness.
- Oct 3, 2007
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Sometimes, but if you have no insurance/bad insurance and have a bad accident/serious illness it's not hard to rack up tens or even hundreds of thousands in medical bills. If I owed a hospital $200K I could fork over all of my savings, not pay any other bills (including the mortgage) and still wouldn't be able to pay that off.
A few decades back I built two boats for millionaires. Each cost way more than our house. Both sold them within 5 yrs. of them being built.
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The way anybody but me spends their money is insane.
The way anybody but me spends their money is none of my concern.
The ACA is meant to fix that in a big way. One of the many good things it does. As many americans are in agreement that medical bills should not drive you to bankruptcy whether you have insurance or not.
Stuff like what is in this thread is just another manifestation of the ingrained need of humans to feel that no matter how crapped their life is, they are somehow better than somebody out there.
But you must pay them for the privelege(interest)unless you are a politician then the folks pay you to spend their money.
THere is always someone worse off than us,in more ways than just financially.
I don't think my life is crappy. I just think there are too many dishonest and lazy people in the world and far too many that would jump at the chance to screw over others for their own benefit.
I think there are too many people looking down on other people. With absolutely no knowledge whatsoever what their circumstances are.
That describes the majority. If the phone rings and I don't know who it is, I can bet that somebody wants to take something from me.
Majority? What that doesn't acknowledge is that most people are honest, hardworking and decent folks.
Very true.
I am sure that sentiment is shared by 100% of the population.
Yeah I guess when someone's a scumbag they generally don't think of themself as a scumbag despite the fact that they're ascumbag.
I'm sure you are right but I think you will find that this is not the case with many medical bankruptcies. You will find folks that were on the ragged edge of getting by that were kicked with a 1000$ bill to fix a corn on their foot and now they can't afford beer so are bankrupt. There will always be those who abuse the bankruptcy system and also those who really deserve to use it.
Most people? If you had to nail it down what percentage would you say are decent, honest people? There's 320 million people in this country. So let's say 70% of them are decent and honest. That still leaves almost 10 million that are less than decent and honest and all it takes is one of them to f with your life.
I've been on this planet for over 6 decades and have been around the globe. Most people I run into are decent folks. They may have a different POV or status, but they are still good folk. It only takes one bad apple to spoil a barrel-full, but that doesn't change the equation.
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