Timeline for Do 643,000 Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 9, 2019 at 22:00 | comment | added | rob | Important to note that all of the medical-related things Canadians go bankrupt over, Americans do too. However, things like ER visits cost $0 so no Canadian will ever go bankrupt from that alone. Can't say the same for the ambulance ride though, or the wheelchair, or the hotel stay if the nearest surgical hospital is in another province. No matter where you are in the world, being sick isn't cheap. | |
| Sep 5, 2019 at 7:04 | comment | added | Chronocidal | @dsollen Except, this answer does not answer the first part of the question ("Is it true that 643,000 Americans go bankrupt each year due to medical bills?"), only the second part ("Is it also true that, for the other countries listed, 0 people go bankrupt each year due to medical bills?"). Both answers are valuable, but this one addresses the lesser part of the question, and the accepted answer addresses the main portion | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 20:53 | comment | added | barbecue | Typically, I make up something and say that it is typical. Typically, this works. | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 18:00 | comment | added | dsollen | I would argue this should be selected as top answer over the snoopes one. This one definitively proves the statement false, where as the other question shines a high degree of doubt, but does not definitively prove the statement false. | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 17:37 | comment | added | Ray Butterworth | @Yakk, my example was someone paying $10,000 per injection because the health system won't pay for it. It is a prescription drug, but one that isn't considered effective enough for insurance to provide it. | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 16:50 | comment | added | Yakk | @RayButterworth No, typically Canadian bankruptcy from medical expenses is (as cited IN THE ANSWER RIGHT ABOVE) prescription drugs and dental bills -- like, 80%+ of the 7% of bankrupt people with significant medical debt. That doesn't leave much room for your "Typical" claim. | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 13:07 | comment | added | Ray Butterworth | Typically Canadian bankruptcy from medical expenses is because of treatment that the government system refuses to pay for, and usually this non-payment is well justified. Some people fly to Mexico for controversial untested treatments. Others buy drugs that will triple their chances of surviving another year, but that means three chances rather than one chance in a million. I recently spoke to a financial professional that told me about one of his clients. She spends $10,000 per month for a single injection. She can afford it now, but if she's still alive in a few years, she'll be bankrupt. | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 6:36 | comment | added | Alexander | @Gryphon We called it "proof by counterexample"; it works for all hypotheses that say "for every/no x holds y". | |
| Sep 4, 2019 at 4:00 | comment | added | Gryphon | I can add anecdotal evidence to support the fact that > 0 people in Canada have gone bankrupt from medical bills (not me, but a friend). Normally, anecdotal evidence is pretty worthless, but this is a specific case where it actually means something. | |
| Sep 3, 2019 at 19:52 | history | answered | Roger | CC BY-SA 4.0 |