<i>&gt; ironically, since poverty is not healthy, unexpected expenses are more likely</i><p>Well, that&#x27;s mostly an US issue, I guess. When you live in a country with even modest public healthcare, such as Germany, things are not that terrible.<p>Here, if you get ill, no matter how bad, you get the base treatment that you need. Of course you can (and should) pay on top of that for better treatment. But event without money, you don&#x27;t have to fear to be denied important treatments. (With some unfortunate, but luckily very rare exceptions.)<p>Thinking of that, I wonder why we Germans are so conservative, despite living relatively secure. A large portion of our people could take a lot of risk without falling too deep. Probably this is because &quot;falling deep&quot; here means to have to rely on social welfare provision, of which people are afraid of. But this is not really falling deep, compared to living on the street in utter poverty.