First of all, this is weaker than your original claim, which is that medical debt (not medical issues more broadly) was the leading cause, and secondly CNBC is mis-citing the underlying study, which only asks about whether something is a contributor, not if it is a “key” contributor:
The majority (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530 000 medical bankruptcies annually.
I also wonder if there is some social desirability bias in the responses here, where medical debt is less shameful to admit to than things like imprudence, gambling or drug addiction.
First of all, this is weaker than your original claim, which is that medical debt (not medical issues more broadly) was the leading cause, and secondly CNBC is mis-citing the underlying study, which only asks about whether something is a contributor, not if it is a “key” contributor:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/
I also wonder if there is some social desirability bias in the responses here, where medical debt is less shameful to admit to than things like imprudence, gambling or drug addiction.