And that is why 2/3 of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical debt. My car accident just hit $10K in bills, and if it was not for the car insurance paying that I'd be a world of hurt... and I don't live paycheck to paycheck. I think a lot of these types of conversations deal with that just about nobody understands how much $10,000 is exactly. 10K is 6 months minimum wage. It's a LOT of money to have in hand all at once.
And that'll fuck you up, too. had a friend who didn't make the best decisions... one of which was to borrow his buddy's road luge on a corner that the buddy didn't want to try. He ended up with an airlift, 6 months in traction and $150k in medical bills that, surprise surprise, he disbursed through bankruptcy because what else are you going to do? So he gets through the bankruptcy and he's going to college and he's got his degree and he needs to buy a truck and his loan comes in at an I-shit-you-not 18% interest because with a bankruptcy on your credit report, you are persona non grata for a decade, y'all. Meanwhile I'm much the same only without the bankruptcy and my car loan cost me 2.2% the same year. Which is just numbers but my $10k car over a 2 year loan cost me $231 in interest. His? $1982. Same loan, only I'm paying $75 less a month for it. Nissan offered to lease me a Versa for 24 months. They wanted $79 a month and $1000 down. Because his credit is shit and my credit is great, I can buy his car and lease a brand new Versa and be within $4 a month of his payment. Realistically? My credit is good enough - and his credit is bad enough - that I can literally afford to lease him a car for the difference between him buying a car and me buying a car.
And he's paying more for every form of insurance with a shit credit score. Nobody will believe me on that, so source for Car insurance here. If you have excellent credit in Kentucky and a DWI conviction, you pay roughly $1400 less than a guy with a perfect driving record and shit credit. If you have a credit score in the 600's you cannot get life insurance, period. So if you have a family and want to protect them if you die, nope. And the ACA exchanges also do a credit score check and base prices accordingly. So you pay more and get offered higher deductibles which eat into your income. Add that owning a house is out of the question so you need to rent, which depending on where you are ends up robbing you of net worth, equity to tap into when times get hard, etc. I have the income and credit that I can go out and buy two houses in the $100,000 range with minimal down and rent them out for what a guy I know got on his mortgage for a $80K house and 15K down. He got divorce raped and missed a mandated child support payment and has a wage garnishment on his record. If you think bankruptcy is terrible...Realistically? My credit is good enough - and his credit is bad enough - that I can literally afford to lease him a car for the difference between him buying a car and me buying a car.