Great article. I like to learn how businesses really work and the unexpected ways they make money. One nit. The author wrote "... the impression among many inf

Great article. I like to learn how businesses really work and the unexpected ways they make money. One nit. The author wrote "... the impression among many informed people that most defaulted debt is medically-related is the result of successful advocacy work rather than being substantially based in reality." Followed by links to illustrate the magnitude of credit card debt and some facts about medical debt in the US. I worked for several years for a company that provides mandatory bankruptcy counseling. Debtors considering personal bankruptcy must, by law (thanks to lobbying by the credit card industry) complete a counseling/personal finance course. I could write about that fake and fraudulent process and the industry that sprung up around it (unfunded mandate, anyone?) but I'll stick to the point. The main reason people give for considering or starting a bankruptcy filing is medical debt. Their other debts, mostly credit cards, mortgages, utilities, etc. may total to much more than the medical debt, but medical debt has more urgency. Hospitals and their corporate owners can get very aggressive collecting debts, and the same consumers that patio11 describes often fear they will lose access to their physicians, hospital, clinic, and prescriptions if they default on medical debt. So they let the credit cards and cell phone bills slide and scrape to pay the medical bills. Medical debt triggers a bigger financial meltdown, maybe leading to bankruptcy, in other words, even though it doesn't amount to nearly as much as mortgage or credit card debt. A lot of medical expenses get charged to credit cards, as anyone who has visited a hospital, clinic, urgent care center, or pharmacy knows. The first thing you get asked at a clinic, lab, or hospital in the US is how you will pay, and if you don't have good insurance you can expect to pay up front for non-emergency or diagnostic procedures. When my grandmother died I helped clear up her finances, including paying off and closing her credit card accounts. After a long illness she had racked up thousands on credit cards, all to pharmacies and labs. That all shows up as consumer credit card debt, not medical debt. Personal bankruptcy counseling has some of the same depressing call center aspects patio11 describes: Tales of woe, often heartbreaking to hear. Confused consumers not sure how much they owe, or to whom. Threats and intimidation from debt collectors. Debt collectors calling days after a spouse dies asserting the survivor has to pay immediately. The people who end up in bankruptcy counseling, very often poor, uneducated, and/or elderly, frequently fall prey to the bottom-feeding law firms that specialize in the field, charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for their "services," that amount to filling out boilerplate forms and filing them with the court, pulling credit reports, and getting kickbacks for sending their clients to a bankruptcy counseling provider. The government encourages bankruptcy counseling firms to push debtors into debt repayment plans or Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which are almost always going to benefit the creditors without offering much relief to the debtor.