this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Memes

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[–] Gorilladrums@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

I'm not saying it's not a problem, but people losing everything for medical expenses is a meme.

About a third of Americans have medical debt, around 12% have debt higher than $10k. The amount of people who declare bankruptcy is around 380k people annually, about 2/3 have medical expenses as a direct cause. That's about 250k people a year. That's a lot of people, and the amount of people who lost a lot but haven't declared bankruptcy is even higher. It's definitely a problem that needs to be fixed, but it's not as common or extreme as people like you make it out to be. The reality is that hyperbole you're describing affects a small number of people and it is not representative of the issues with the American healthcare system.