To people acting like everyone ends up in debt on purpose, feel lucky that you’ve not had financial disaster strike. Means can change in an instant, and what you thought was a huge safety net can be gone to a bad accident or hospital stay as quick as you can blink.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
298 points (96.9% liked)
News
23275 readers
3650 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Facts. I had a major health issue essentially overnight, no long term disability but decent health insurance. Maxed out my deductible 2 consecutive years, was unable to work for 10 months. Still in medical debt with no savings almost 3 years later because of this setback. Hoping to get the debt paid off in the next year and start saving up again.
Which is precisely something anyone outside the US (or other countries without a functional social healthcare system) don’t understand. Nobody outside those places is as worried about their healthcare costs dragging them into debt. Which makes sense, considering there’s no reason why an ambulance should cost between 5 and 10 thousand dollars, or a drug having to cost 5000 times the production price, when it’s initial development was funded by US taxpayers.
Yeah, but they are free and you're not /s
load more comments
(2 replies)
Yep. Hurt my back and needed surgery, was out of work for 3 months, literally the week after I returned to my job my wife had a severe neck issue that took 9 months to diagnose then 6-12 months to recover from after surgery. So one of us has been out of work almost non stop for almost 2 and a half years now, in addition to accruing a ton of medical debit. And I have really decent insurance, but the max out of pocket is like $5000-13000 for my family. And my premium aren’t cheap either. It’s unfortunate.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Reading accounts like this has made me realize I should worry about disability insurance coverage more than life insurance. That extra 600 bucks a year or whatever for the add on disability insurance to give me 50% more coverage seems worth it to me. Hope I never need it, but 25 bucks per paycheck seems worth it for extra peace of mind and security.
Disability insurance is something that everybody should have. You never know when you will become disabled. I became disabled in my mid-30s. Without disability insurance, I would potentially never make any money again. With it, I get 60% of my previous income until I'm 60 years old. That's not enough to live on, but it sure is a lot better than not having anything.
Im guessing thay you're in the US and you're referring to "long term disability insurance". To anyone else in the US considering LTD and thinking "$25 is a lot a month, I could afford it but the insurance doesn't seem that important." Please look into the rules in your area. In some cases, if you don't have LTD you're health insurance ends when your Short term disability ends if you cannot still return to work at that time. LTD may keep your health insurance going in a time when you will most need it for you and/or your family. It could mean the difference between being back at work in 2 years and losing everything. If you can afford it you should probably get LTD.
So I guess I am lucky that my employer offers basic LTD? For me the 30 bucks is the supplemental add on to get the standard 40% salary coverage increases to 60%. To me that's 600 or 700 bucks a year in cost that is going to be the difference of thousands of dollars a month if I end up needing LTD.
In my case, LTD did not enable me to keep my health insurance, but it did enable me to keep receiving some income.
I got struck by a car while I was still a young college student and had no health insurance (this was before children could stay on their parents' health insurance until they reach 26).
One of my parents is poor and the other is just a step above it, so medical bills went unpaid.
I had the joy of starting my adult life in debt, with bad credit, during the Great Recession.
Know what's fun? Waking up at 2 am and having to grab your family and whatever you can carry, because the river is now in your living room.
So many people are, as you say, in debt for reasons completely outside of their control. And it doesn't take a lot. Bad transmission in your car, or a surprise medical bill, tree limb landing on your roof...
load more comments
(5 replies)
Fuck em, dont pay it back. Shit lets go fight club on these companies. They do nothing but steal. Might as well do the same back.
The first step is getting as out of debt as possible. The second step is figuring out which of those debts are pointless money pits [medical, student loans] and then realizing that credit is nothing more than a yoke and a scam and then you're totally free.
They wont garnish your wage without a court order, and guess what would be impossible to get if we all did it? The courts would be backed up for 30 years.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I actually kind of wonder what would happen if literally every debt owed to a mega bank or corporation just collectively stopped being paid...what would happen? Might be fun.
Yet another article that could have been published any time in the past 40 fucking years.
Pretty much.
Yeah! Be like the billionaires, former mayors of NY, radio talk show hosts and politicians. Don't pay back shit.
Lets say you have no objective chance of ever getting a house and you have an apartment you probably can't be kicked out of.
How does it make sense to keep drowning and being miserable and nominally padding the bottom line of some random banks ledger?
Why not file and discharge, keep ur car/primary residence, and be done with it? Banks have everyone on this riduculous hamster wheel that even they would never tolerate, but ya, you're a deadbeat fuckup for demanding corporations dirty little trick creditors HATE...
you have an apartment you probably can’t be kicked out of.
Mind expanding on why you think this is a reasonable assumption? There was an eviction moratorium at the height of the pandemic, but that has been over for more than two years now. The required notice period for an eviction varies with jurisdiction, but generally isn't more than a month or two, and if you try to drag it out a little further by refusing to vacate and forcing them to take you to court, having an eviction on your credit report makes looking for future rental accommodations Super Hell™.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Bankruptcy sucks and I wouldn't recommend it except as a last resort, but if one's position is untenable it makes sense to avail yourself of every recourse. I have a friend who went through one and she's doing fine as far as I can tell. It's not like businesses are shy about filling Chapter 11 when it suits their purposes.
So…how would I create an LLC, and then transfer my debt to it? Asking for several friends.
I think you have to tell the judge you want the white rich person deal first. You know like Wall Street gets
- Be cash-poor but a billionaire on paper.
That's okay. The govt can forgive it and print money if needed.
They only do this for corporations defaulting. not citizens... ;)
Shitttt!
The government should go after the companies price gouging and make a fund with it. That fund should be set up for people that are in trouble either with a payment plan that works, financial council if needed. I'm not sure if they can get enough funds for partial and full payments but the corporate greed is one reason all these people had to go this route. Most Americans are living paycheck by paycheck every year medical goes up higher than the wages.
view more: next ›