US News, CNBC and Fox News all released a very similar article in the past week, urging people to take out a personal loan to help pay off medical expenses. Many people will find this very tempting and think it's a great idea; a lot of those people will go through with it and attempt to take out another loan, in order to pay off money that they already owe. It's understandable, to an extent. America is the only modern western nation where you're billed a fortune for your health. Millions believe this should change, and perhaps it really should. Regardless, America is stuck with its current system for the foreseeable future, and that means you will rack up medical expenses when you visit a doctor or end up in the hospital. Even if you have insurance, you're still going to end up paying out of pocket for many drugs and services. This is just how it is in a corporate-based, for-profit system that has monetized the idea of individual health. Though should the answer to medical expenses be to simply take on more expenses?

In a certain body of context, this isn't a horrible idea. The process of debt consolidation has helped millions of Americans keep their heads above water. However, this typically deals with a restructuring of a person's entire finances. For instance, this person's mortgage, student loans, car payments, credit cards, etc, are taken into account. This debt is then bought out by a single entity, and you end up only having to pay one company for all of your debt. In this sort of situation, it makes sense for people who are struggling to juggle their bills. For medical expenses, however, taking on more debt to pay off doctors' bills can be very dangerous. Despite what the mainstream media is trying to push on you, take a few moments to understand why this is a bad idea.

Compounding Debt Keeps Compounding

Although the days of English debtors' prisons are gone, you can still get in some serious trouble if you have too much debt to handle. Most of these large corporations have the authority to take you to court and to garnish your wages if you fall behind on payments. You will be powerless to stop this, other than filing for bankruptcy; and this can ruin the life of a normal person. You also have to be very careful when getting into any type of debt with any company, as they are very quick to actually sell your debt to another company, for a profit, and this company can then charge you more interest, change your minimum payment structure, and break your initial contract since they're an entirely different company. America's government supports this and has structured laws that allow large corporations to treat people as commodities, so you will be pretty much powerless to fight back. The first time you miss a payment, real trouble will begin.

A lot of people may be thinking, "But I wouldn't miss a payment!" Well, realistically speaking, if you weren't a threat to miss payments, then you wouldn't be thinking about taking out a personal loan to pay off medical expenses. The best-case scenario is that you pay off all of your medical bills in one go, and so you only have the one bill with which to contend. But what's exponentially more likely to happen to you is that you end up saddled with interest payments coming in from your medical bills, and also loan payments due. So, you end up with double the payments when you thought you would be cleared of one. You're just inviting trouble when you compound your debt in this way.

It's a Cycle

You should also be careful here because it's going to be very tempting to drink from the same well every time you get thirsty, meaning that you're likely to lean on this method every time you find yourself underwater on expenses. People often get so desperate that they take out loans for groceries or for home repairs. Even worse, they go with high-interest payday loans and end up never free of the debt they accrued.

Medical expenses may be tough to pay off, but you're likely only going to make things much worse if you start taking on debt in order to pay debt. You will be much better off finding another way to handle these bills.