One possible explanation is that concern about access to healthcare and fear of medical debt is an ongoing concern in the US. Having one accumulation of debt relieved provides little protection from the vagaries of life creating another insurmountable financial problem.
Exactly. Having your current "medical debt" (US only term, I think) paid - if it's all paid, other posts indicate it is not - doesn't exempt you from accumulating more of it in the future. On the contrary, it may make you more likely to get more.
I have a serious medical condition, and at different times have had significant medical debt. I've never once had an issue getting access to care, even with organizations that I had bills in collection with.
Itemized payments and fees for thousands of claims were made public in a lawsuit against Cigna after The Times petitioned the court. The insurer and MultiPlan opposed the release, calling the data “highly confidential.”
"For providing outpatient substance abuse treatment,
the facility received $134.13.
(Fee for Cigna)
For processing the claim, Cigna received $658.75, nearly five times as much as the treatment center.
(Fee for MultiPlan)
For recommending a payment amount, MultiPlan received $167.48, slightly more than the treatment center."
I was homeless, then working below minimum wage for about that long. I now make 750k a year.
Don't write off the poor as broken, help them achieve to their ability. Most poor folks aren't poor because of bad choices, they are poor because of systemic issues that make life harder and more expensive. If we lift these people out of that hell scape, they'd be able to do so much more.
my bank, for instance, would reorganize my deposits and debits to maximize overdraft fees. I would put cash in, then go use my debit card later in the day, but the debit would process first. Then I would overdraft, then the cash would be applied, then the next purchase would overdraft. Despite the first operation being putting cash in the bank that would cover. My bank also had a 0% interest rate on my savings account because "we made a mistake".
Anecdotally this makes sense. Everyone I know with medical debt has no intention of paying it, and would live their lives the same if it were payed off.
But what value is credit score, really? Like, the most mundane thing credit score might affect is that you have to put a deposit down to get a fancy phone, or an internet service.
No one's buying houses, no one needs to buy a car on credit, etc. Credit score is highly overrated, no?
Many many people are never going to buy houses. I've never owned a house. Probably never will. I've never owned a new car, either, and I'm older than dirt. Some commenters had good counter examples, but those seemed to me like the main reasons to "need" a good credit score.
a credit score locks people out of an entire tier of purchases that could reasonably be paid off over time if they weren't entirely opt-ed out by credit, it isn't just fancy phones and internet services.
i've known home-owners that can't get financed for things like air conditioners because of medical debt -- and they were home owners -- and large appliances like that constitute large purchases espescially for those on fixed incomes; this essentially means there is a group of people that own homes, , likely retired so they're working on a fixed income and could surely use the flexibility of finance options, need to finance the repairs, and can't because of unrelated medical debt.
You made a good point I hadn't thought of: it's precisely the people with bad credit scores that most often need to take out loans for those things that people with great credit scores probably don't worry about.
Credit checks and score can also affect insurance rates. A bad score can also prevent job candidates from being hired for some jobs in some industries.
>No one's buying houses,
Even in scenarios of not buying a house... e.g. Getting a new loan on a primary home via re-financing an existing mortgage or taking a 2nd mortgage requires a good credit score.
Even if one is not getting a home mortgage, renters can be denied from leasing apartments because of credit score.
No. Really no. Some employers do credit checks. It can also impact your ability to just rent an apartment. Way back in the early 2000s I had a poor credit score and it meant 1) having to put down onerous deposits for services* and 2) being declined a few times when I tried to rent an apartment.
I was able to rent an apartment, but it cost me a few non-refundable application fees first and had to take a less-desirable apartment.
A poor credit score will also cost you when it's time to buy a car. You need to buy a new car? Unless you can pay cash, borrowing money is going to cost you more because you have a bad credit score.
* One of the many ways that being broke is a self-perpetuating cycle. You have little money, so you have to cough up deposits and tie up what little money you do have trying to secure services and a place to live. Some of that money you will get back - eventually - some of it (rental deposits) there's a good chance you'll never see again or only see some of. (Obligatory mention of Vimes' Boots theory...)
At least in Canada, your credit score affects your ability to get a loan, and at what interest rate that loan will be. So it greatly affects your ability to buy a car and house. Is that not also the case in the US?
I think the point is that people who have so much medical debt that they’re not even able to make payments on it are not in a position to buy a house or a car either.
And more realistically, more people than ever will never be able to afford to own a home.
I assume that a lot of people who have medical dept know that they will never pay that. Some even will choose that without eveb try. So regardless of the details, morality and problems in healthcare system. I would like if someone can explain what are the consequences or non payment. How is that different from not paying credit card balance?.
The consequences are not the same as a credit card. Medical debt in the US does not show up like credit card debt and does not have bearing on your credit score. People with massive medical debt can arrange with the health system to pay $50 per month on a $50,000 medical bill, and it has no material impact on their credit.
I didn't know that. I have to say, this is a crazy system. Why not just have a single payer rather than saddle people with debts that they cannot (and will not) pay off? It's got to cause a lot of stress.
Because then insurance companies wouldn't be able to skim ~20% off the top of the system. A lot of people who own stock in those insurance companies would be very upset.
The US can't "just" do anything because the political system is completely deadlocked. It's not really like well-functioning democracies where a coalition can win an election with a particular set of proposals for reform and then get those implemented.
Not disagreeing. Actually, the Republican party these days is capable of gridlocking itself. I've never seen such a high level of dysfunction -- enough so that I suspect we are living in some transition period, although what we are transitioning to I am uncertain. I don't think the current Republican party is stable.
transition need only happen when there is some potential consequence of failure. The US is militarily inassailable, it's not going to fall in the same way that, eg, the polish sejm did with the liberum veto.
sure, it can crumble economically etc but that's a lot slower process and gives plenty of time to materialize the spin.
Because America is hyper-individualistic and distrusting of government.
We don't trust the government to manage it appropriately and will instead use that money for vanity projects or to line the pockets of whoever is running that program.
Then for the people, we consider "failures" such as debt, homelessness, etc as moral failures, rather than failures of the system. The leading thought is "Why are MY tax dollars paying for someone else's knee surgery? They should have planned properly!"
Any change to this system will require a societal shift within America which isn't going to be happening anytime soon, if ever.
> "Why are MY tax dollars paying for someone else's knee surgery? They should have planned properly!"
This is a very bad faith take on what groups opposed are saying and I don't even agree with them. You don't need to do this to effectively argue against this stance.
> Even on death’s doorstep, Trevor was not angry. In fact, he staunchly supported the stance promoted by his elected officials. “Ain’t no way I would ever support Obamacare or sign up for it,” he told me. “I would rather die.” When I asked him why he felt this way even as he faced severe illness, he explained: “We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.” [0]
It is super-sad, yet quintessentially USA: literally dying, for a political class who don't care about you, over principles rooted in selfishness. Can you get any more American than that?
Heya! Generalizations and personal experiences are necessary for any quick and easily understandable point to be made. I'm not going to write a dissertation on the intricacies of anti-nationalized healthcare beliefs.
Tying into personal experience. When I paid for my mom's knee surgery which left her wheelchair-bound for 2 months afterward, I had many proudly conservative family members ask me why I would do that. The knee surgery was to help with damage done from obesity (which she had beat before the surgery and is now at a healthy weight). I was told that I was rewarding her "bad" behavior. That she needed to suffer the consequences of her actions. That her health is not my responsibility.
All of those statements reflect my earlier statement of American individualism and our belief that these issues are moral failings, rather than societal failings. This individualism runs so deep in our society that a son is chastised for helping his mother.
Everyone I know from anywhere on the political spectrum would consider it honorable to pay for your mom’s surgery in the way you described. I’m not doubting your experience, but I don’t think it represents most Americans or even most right-wing Americans.
I think the rest of your point, about Americans in general not trusting the government to do things efficiently or competently, is true though.
> Why not just have a single payer rather than saddle people with debts that they cannot (and will not) pay off? It's got to cause a lot of stress.
Because a job "with benefits" is a badge of honor. Because the "gubment" is wasteful. Because people believe people will scam any system like that (although most people who think this assume it's "certain" people who do the scamming and can't be bothered to realize it's people like Rick Scott who do the scamming.).
> US does not show up like credit card debt and does not have bearing on your credit score
Did the rule change that it can no longer show up regardless of timeframe on a credit score? I believe in the US it used to be 1 year after being overdue.
Anyhow, given that it now no longer shows up, what's the point of paying it?
Non-American here: What is the incentive for anyone in the US to pay off medical debt then? Also, I’ve read that medical debt is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the US; how does that work?
The non-reporting is only for cleared medical debt, which means it was paid off. Also it has to be under $500. Which we all know in the US. There is no medical bill under $500. This thing that Biden Admin did is useless for people that have medical debt.
https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/
Strongly disagree. Being able to take your time to pay a debt when in a cash crunch without worrying about the long-term impacts on your credit is material.
First off, it's not strictly true that medical debt won't show up on a consumer credit report. Medical debts that are in collections will eventually show up, if they are large enough.
Secondly, it's still a legal debt. That means the billing department will employ escalating collection tactics for large debts where they believe the debtor has sufficient assets.
Look, everybody is all excited about single-payer healthcare, but this is even better; zero-payer healthcare!
There is a chance of follow up, and some healthcare providers do. You can be taken to court and forced to pay or declare bankruptcy if you can't.
While the US does legally require some medical care regardless of ability to pay, that's mostly for life sustaining care; healthcare providers to which you owe a large debt may decline to provide healthcare when not legally obligated. That can be a big deal or not depending on your available providers and their policies.
I don’t think this is true - it says in the article that debts of less than $500 will not show up on credit reports. It sounds like it would only show up if it went to collections though as most hospitals don’t report directly.
Pretty sure UVA ( University of Virginia Health System ) stands out as a contrasting point to that. I've read they are extremely aggressive at going after people.
I always chime in to say that mixing capitalism with human morbidity and mortality always results in a sort of macabre humor.
If you can't get a price for a service upfront, then you can't know whether or not you can afford that service. And if your life literally depends on that service, then what is the elasticity of demand? The stakes aren't always so high, but sometimes they are, and even in low-stakes situations, like trying to get an x-ray, no one can ever tell me what it's going to cost; they look at me like I'm stupid for asking.
One small example - my dermatologist always mentions the cost of procedure or medication, at least in very general terms (X is available as a generic, or procedure A costs more than B). She can't get into details, since that's all negotiated on the back end and obfuscated behind my copays and deductibles. But, it's better than nothing.
I wonder if part of this has to do with the more complex, piecemeal nature of medical debt and these buybacks.
How I understand several of these groups (I'm not certain of the one in the article) do these debt purchases is that they purchase debt that has already been bundled together and resold. So when a person owes medical debt to a hospital, a doctor, a surgeon's practice, a pharmacy, etc, they may owe 15k in total, and these buybacks only cover one resold debt, they may have their hospital debt forgiven, for example, but still own 10k in total to the 3 or 4 other creditors.
Contrast that to a mortgage debt, for example, where paying off the mortgage relieves all anxiety around that debt, and I can see how the difference in complex, multi-creditor debt versus simpler, singular-creditor debt could help address the findings of this study.
Paying off your mortgage virtually eliminates your chances of ending up homeless, and absolutely drastically reduces those odds in the near term. This is at the foundational layer of Maslov's hierarchy of needs. I'd expect the impact on one's daily sense of well being to be massive.
Paying off your medical debt might improve your credit score over a long period of time, assuming you have other things going for you in that area. People who are worried about becoming homeless generally do not give a single shit about their credit scores. Having good credit one day is an aspirational thing for probably the majority of humans, closer to the 'optional' upper layer of Maslov's model.
I like how a foundational layer of maslov's hierarchy of needs is just something we shrug off as unattainable to many, but god forbid we discourage people from chasing profits at the expense of all else
Our family filed for bankruptcy due to medical debt. Within two years, our lives were back to normal. I financed a car at a cheap interest rate, and bought a house (and my current interest rate is 2.5%). Anytime a financial institution asked why we filed for bankruptcy, we told them it was due to medical bills and they would laugh and say that they see it all the time. It really wasn't a big deal.
And businesses get to do this all the time for bad business ventures. Why can't people do it because of no fault of their own? Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
I'm not a medical expert, but I would guess that the initial diagnosis and treatment of a serious medical issue is more expensive, than the maintenance of a chronic condition that is already diagnosed and defined.
Regardless, the US medical system sucks. If any other industry was run like our current medical system, it would be torn down in a heartbeat by Congress. But there is too much money moving around and those in charge love them some money.
> I'm not a medical expert, but I would guess that the initial diagnosis and treatment of a serious medical issue is more expensive, than the maintenance of a chronic condition that is already diagnosed and defined
Unfortunately, as someone who works with the disabled community, that's not always the case. Plenty of folks need constant medication, live in care, support devices that wear out, or other high cost consumables.
The US had real hardship in the Great Depression. There were a lot of social programs, regulations, and other progressive achievements made during that time.
Then we were on the winning side in WWII, and happened to be the only place where most of the factories weren't in ruins. We also had a bunch of men trained in the art of war coming back and didn't want them pissed off, so companies were in a place to offer good pay and benefits. This caused a rollback of progressive policies over the next 75 years.
By the time people have accrued medical debt, the thing that was going to change their lives in relation to that debt - the procedure itself - has already occurred. And like others in here are saying, many are just willing to tell hospitals "You can't squeeze blood from a stone" in relation to paying off the debt, so paying it just removes some debt they didn't intend on paying anyways.
Where the problem comes from is that people put off procedures that are necessary because they are afraid of the debt. Those people never get the debt that has to be paid off to begin with, so they wouldn't be a focus of the study. That being said, they're at the very least more miserable because they're not going to the doctor to get treated. They could also be less productive, develop more expensive conditions, or die.
There should be no such thing as "medical debt" - the social contract is entirely broken in any country where there is. I simply don't understand why people aren't marching in the streets with pitchforks over the issue.
Which countries have that? The most common system I know of is where the government heavily subsidizes medical costs and controls prices to prevent price gouging.
A lot of people in here think that you don't have to pay your medical bills with no consequences. That's absolutely false! Medical debt can destroy your credit and keep you from being able to purchase a car, renting and purchasing a home. It can also increase your car and home insurance rates.
It doesn't have zero effect, but medical debt has been increasingly deemphasized in many credit scoring models over time. Generally speaking, the only medical debt that should show up is anything over $500 that is at least one year in collections.
> Since 2014, R.I.P. Medical Debt estimates that it has eliminated more than $11 billion of debt …
Is this before or after it has been sold to collection agencies?
If it’s before, that’s kind of amazing. But if it’s after then the hospital billing departments often sell this debt to collection agencies for cents on the dollar.
Paying off $11B in the past 10 years is more of a transfer of wealth to the collection agencies.
I’m honestly not surprised paying off the medical debt doesn’t help.
From the paper describing this experiment, they did one trial with buying fresh debt, for 5.5 cents per dollar, direct from the healthcare provider. But, the second experiment and most of RIP's operations buy older debt that's going for one cent or less per dollar.
I imagine RIP reports in face value of the debt purchased. It sounds better.
Medical debt is different. The legal system frowns on people running up credit card debt to pay for PS5s or nice vacations with no intention of ever paying it back. That's tantamount to theft. Most medical debt is involuntary and necessary to survive. It doesn't make sense for it to have the same penalties as other forms of credit.
In general in the US, life saving or emergency medical care is administered without regard for the patient's ability to pay. Hospitals are already subsidized or compensated in various ways for this. The real issue is preventative or precautionary care. If Americans had that for free, like with the NHS, there would be fewer $XXX,XXX debts later in life.
That's because these charities wait until you default on the debt, go to collections, collections finds it so hopeless that they'll collect that they sell it to another collection agency, on and on, until it's bundled as the absolute cheapest debt you can buy, at less than a penny on the dollar. The only folks buying these junk debt bundles are hoping maybe 1 out of 100 of the debts are worth going after. Then the charity takes a look at buying up the cheapest bundle and forgiving it. $11 billion of bundles could have cost the charity $11 million total. There is a floor to the consequences on the customer, which is pretty much hit the moment it goes to collections (unless you have enough assets to make a lawsuit worthwhile). After that it's so far in the rearview mirror they probably don't even discover it happened. I wouldn't be surprised if collections agencies are the main supporters of debt forgiveness charities. Just another income stream for them.
More than 20 years ago, I had my first bs claim from a hospital, where at a hospital that was covered by insurance, my doctor they provided happened to be out-of-area because he was a substitute or something unbeknownst to me and became a several thousand dollar surprise charge.
How this was somehow my fault or problem was ridiculous, so I simply didn't pay the bill. They turned it to collections, I started getting calls, but I never across years pick up calls from random people on my cell anyways. They eventually sell off to other vultures that try, and get the same. Then at some point they just stop bothering.
What impact did this have on my credit? Absolutely none perceptibly.
Since then I make a habit of not paying these when they arise, and let them bounce off a combination of call screening and my ignoring phone calls anyways. If I'm part of the problem, they're the perpetrators of the problem to begin with, and still get rich regardless, so why feed the beast?
The whole medical industry and bottom feeders that surround it like collections are just fuct in the US. The industry and governments do nothing to fix it, so why play the game fair.
> And those whose bills had been paid were just as likely to forgo medical care as those whose bills were left unpaid.
This is an utterly irrational statement. If you don’t have medical insurance, you are just as unlikely to seek out medical care with medical debt as you are without it.
This statement is just as rational as saying, “those who cannot drive but who had their car loan paid off were just as likely to still not drive as those who could not drive and had no car loan in the first place.”
It was almost impossible getting my school grade to 4.50 from ridiculous 3.40 after failing a 3 unit International Relation. it was heartbreaking for me as i never could imagine lagging behind spiderwebhack dot co at gmail dot com
It was almost impossible getting my school grade to 4.50 from ridiculous 3.40 after failing a 3 unit International Relation. it was heartbreaking for me as i never could imagine lagging behind spiderwebhack dot co at gmail dot com helped me in a space of 48hrs which i considered an excellent job
89 comments
[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] threadI'd read that article in conjunction with https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/07/us/health-insurance-medic...
...which outlines exactly how insurance companies can just sort of decide...not to pay your medical bills, and leave patients with huge debt.
"For providing outpatient substance abuse treatment, the facility received $134.13.
(Fee for Cigna) For processing the claim, Cigna received $658.75, nearly five times as much as the treatment center.
(Fee for MultiPlan) For recommending a payment amount, MultiPlan received $167.48, slightly more than the treatment center."
Don't write off the poor as broken, help them achieve to their ability. Most poor folks aren't poor because of bad choices, they are poor because of systemic issues that make life harder and more expensive. If we lift these people out of that hell scape, they'd be able to do so much more.
my bank, for instance, would reorganize my deposits and debits to maximize overdraft fees. I would put cash in, then go use my debit card later in the day, but the debit would process first. Then I would overdraft, then the cash would be applied, then the next purchase would overdraft. Despite the first operation being putting cash in the bank that would cover. My bank also had a 0% interest rate on my savings account because "we made a mistake".
No one's buying houses, no one needs to buy a car on credit, etc. Credit score is highly overrated, no?
i've known home-owners that can't get financed for things like air conditioners because of medical debt -- and they were home owners -- and large appliances like that constitute large purchases espescially for those on fixed incomes; this essentially means there is a group of people that own homes, , likely retired so they're working on a fixed income and could surely use the flexibility of finance options, need to finance the repairs, and can't because of unrelated medical debt.
Credit checks and score can also affect insurance rates. A bad score can also prevent job candidates from being hired for some jobs in some industries.
>No one's buying houses,
Even in scenarios of not buying a house... e.g. Getting a new loan on a primary home via re-financing an existing mortgage or taking a 2nd mortgage requires a good credit score.
Even if one is not getting a home mortgage, renters can be denied from leasing apartments because of credit score.
I was able to rent an apartment, but it cost me a few non-refundable application fees first and had to take a less-desirable apartment.
A poor credit score will also cost you when it's time to buy a car. You need to buy a new car? Unless you can pay cash, borrowing money is going to cost you more because you have a bad credit score.
* One of the many ways that being broke is a self-perpetuating cycle. You have little money, so you have to cough up deposits and tie up what little money you do have trying to secure services and a place to live. Some of that money you will get back - eventually - some of it (rental deposits) there's a good chance you'll never see again or only see some of. (Obligatory mention of Vimes' Boots theory...)
And more realistically, more people than ever will never be able to afford to own a home.
https://www.fico.com/blogs/medical-collection-removals-have-...
The US can't "just" do anything because the political system is completely deadlocked. It's not really like well-functioning democracies where a coalition can win an election with a particular set of proposals for reform and then get those implemented.
Not disagreeing. Actually, the Republican party these days is capable of gridlocking itself. I've never seen such a high level of dysfunction -- enough so that I suspect we are living in some transition period, although what we are transitioning to I am uncertain. I don't think the current Republican party is stable.
sure, it can crumble economically etc but that's a lot slower process and gives plenty of time to materialize the spin.
We don't trust the government to manage it appropriately and will instead use that money for vanity projects or to line the pockets of whoever is running that program.
Then for the people, we consider "failures" such as debt, homelessness, etc as moral failures, rather than failures of the system. The leading thought is "Why are MY tax dollars paying for someone else's knee surgery? They should have planned properly!"
Any change to this system will require a societal shift within America which isn't going to be happening anytime soon, if ever.
This is a very bad faith take on what groups opposed are saying and I don't even agree with them. You don't need to do this to effectively argue against this stance.
[0]https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/jonathan-m-metzl-dying...
Tying into personal experience. When I paid for my mom's knee surgery which left her wheelchair-bound for 2 months afterward, I had many proudly conservative family members ask me why I would do that. The knee surgery was to help with damage done from obesity (which she had beat before the surgery and is now at a healthy weight). I was told that I was rewarding her "bad" behavior. That she needed to suffer the consequences of her actions. That her health is not my responsibility.
All of those statements reflect my earlier statement of American individualism and our belief that these issues are moral failings, rather than societal failings. This individualism runs so deep in our society that a son is chastised for helping his mother.
I think the rest of your point, about Americans in general not trusting the government to do things efficiently or competently, is true though.
This one kills me. This is almost literally the definition of insurance.
Because a job "with benefits" is a badge of honor. Because the "gubment" is wasteful. Because people believe people will scam any system like that (although most people who think this assume it's "certain" people who do the scamming and can't be bothered to realize it's people like Rick Scott who do the scamming.).
Did the rule change that it can no longer show up regardless of timeframe on a credit score? I believe in the US it used to be 1 year after being overdue.
Anyhow, given that it now no longer shows up, what's the point of paying it?
The non-reportability is a recent change. Also, if the provider sues, whether it’s on your credit report is irrelevant.
Strongly disagree. Being able to take your time to pay a debt when in a cash crunch without worrying about the long-term impacts on your credit is material.
Secondly, it's still a legal debt. That means the billing department will employ escalating collection tactics for large debts where they believe the debtor has sufficient assets.
There is a chance of follow up, and some healthcare providers do. You can be taken to court and forced to pay or declare bankruptcy if you can't.
While the US does legally require some medical care regardless of ability to pay, that's mostly for life sustaining care; healthcare providers to which you owe a large debt may decline to provide healthcare when not legally obligated. That can be a big deal or not depending on your available providers and their policies.
If you can't get a price for a service upfront, then you can't know whether or not you can afford that service. And if your life literally depends on that service, then what is the elasticity of demand? The stakes aren't always so high, but sometimes they are, and even in low-stakes situations, like trying to get an x-ray, no one can ever tell me what it's going to cost; they look at me like I'm stupid for asking.
One small example - my dermatologist always mentions the cost of procedure or medication, at least in very general terms (X is available as a generic, or procedure A costs more than B). She can't get into details, since that's all negotiated on the back end and obfuscated behind my copays and deductibles. But, it's better than nothing.
How I understand several of these groups (I'm not certain of the one in the article) do these debt purchases is that they purchase debt that has already been bundled together and resold. So when a person owes medical debt to a hospital, a doctor, a surgeon's practice, a pharmacy, etc, they may owe 15k in total, and these buybacks only cover one resold debt, they may have their hospital debt forgiven, for example, but still own 10k in total to the 3 or 4 other creditors.
Contrast that to a mortgage debt, for example, where paying off the mortgage relieves all anxiety around that debt, and I can see how the difference in complex, multi-creditor debt versus simpler, singular-creditor debt could help address the findings of this study.
Paying off your medical debt might improve your credit score over a long period of time, assuming you have other things going for you in that area. People who are worried about becoming homeless generally do not give a single shit about their credit scores. Having good credit one day is an aspirational thing for probably the majority of humans, closer to the 'optional' upper layer of Maslov's model.
And businesses get to do this all the time for bad business ventures. Why can't people do it because of no fault of their own? Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Regardless, the US medical system sucks. If any other industry was run like our current medical system, it would be torn down in a heartbeat by Congress. But there is too much money moving around and those in charge love them some money.
Unfortunately, as someone who works with the disabled community, that's not always the case. Plenty of folks need constant medication, live in care, support devices that wear out, or other high cost consumables.
Agree though, our health care system is terrible.
Then we were on the winning side in WWII, and happened to be the only place where most of the factories weren't in ruins. We also had a bunch of men trained in the art of war coming back and didn't want them pissed off, so companies were in a place to offer good pay and benefits. This caused a rollback of progressive policies over the next 75 years.
Where the problem comes from is that people put off procedures that are necessary because they are afraid of the debt. Those people never get the debt that has to be paid off to begin with, so they wouldn't be a focus of the study. That being said, they're at the very least more miserable because they're not going to the doctor to get treated. They could also be less productive, develop more expensive conditions, or die.
there isn't a singular problem in a country where your credit score can dictate the quality of your future.
Yes, you should put out the medical fires first, but to pretend that it's smooth sailing afterwards is to be blind to half of the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers...
Is this before or after it has been sold to collection agencies?
If it’s before, that’s kind of amazing. But if it’s after then the hospital billing departments often sell this debt to collection agencies for cents on the dollar.
Paying off $11B in the past 10 years is more of a transfer of wealth to the collection agencies.
I’m honestly not surprised paying off the medical debt doesn’t help.
Seems more like $100M paid to hospitals in exchange for writing off $11B.
$100M over a 10 year period doesn’t make the headlines though :(
I imagine RIP reports in face value of the debt purchased. It sounds better.
The question we need to ask is what would have been their mental and physical health if we never had saddled them with it to begin with.
In general in the US, life saving or emergency medical care is administered without regard for the patient's ability to pay. Hospitals are already subsidized or compensated in various ways for this. The real issue is preventative or precautionary care. If Americans had that for free, like with the NHS, there would be fewer $XXX,XXX debts later in life.
How this was somehow my fault or problem was ridiculous, so I simply didn't pay the bill. They turned it to collections, I started getting calls, but I never across years pick up calls from random people on my cell anyways. They eventually sell off to other vultures that try, and get the same. Then at some point they just stop bothering.
What impact did this have on my credit? Absolutely none perceptibly.
Since then I make a habit of not paying these when they arise, and let them bounce off a combination of call screening and my ignoring phone calls anyways. If I'm part of the problem, they're the perpetrators of the problem to begin with, and still get rich regardless, so why feed the beast?
The whole medical industry and bottom feeders that surround it like collections are just fuct in the US. The industry and governments do nothing to fix it, so why play the game fair.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240408130708if_/https://www.ny...
This is an utterly irrational statement. If you don’t have medical insurance, you are just as unlikely to seek out medical care with medical debt as you are without it.
This statement is just as rational as saying, “those who cannot drive but who had their car loan paid off were just as likely to still not drive as those who could not drive and had no car loan in the first place.”