politics

medical collections debt under $500

Who does this cover, like 20 people?

Medical collections debt under $500

Ah, so, none of them then. That's why this isn't news.

Basset Healthcare literally outsourced their ~~bumming~~ billing department to a debt collection agency. We waited months for a bill, found out they were in the process of switching and then got a very aggressive letter stating we were delinquent.

:: Left the typo in there because it's technically correct.

Even if it didn't, even if it worked exactly as intended, it doesn't fix anything. It just moves the problem. Now you're incentivized to focus on paying down other debts because medical debt doesn't hurt your credit. Now you're paying car payments, rent, student loan debt, credit cards, etc. first and medical debt last (if at all). Now hospital prices rocket even higher because even more people aren't making payments, insurance premiums soar further, and absolutely nothing is fixed. The system is broken and it's not because of credit scores.

We need to solve medical debt by addressing the source of the problem. Insurance. At minimum we need a public option. Better still, Medicare for all. Medical care should be socialized. Health is not capital. The threat of crippling debt or injury, disease and death without treatment should not be a profit generator for the protection racket that is insurance.

Yes however medical debt is covered under hipa. When the debt agencies buy your medical debt they are violating hipa laws. There are a lot of strategies for eliminating this type of debt without ever paying it. Usually simply asking for debt verification is enough to get it removed from your credit report.

people this is just crumbs

And they say "vote blue matter who". No wonder liberals and left are losing in the past ten years. They abandoned the common folks instead of making drastic changes that actually alleviates the pressure of most ordinary folks. Never mind global inflation and its effects on incumbent governments, populism is clearly the way to go and that's why the both the right and far right is gaining ground. They know where the wind is heading while the liberals and left are still choosing to bury their heads in the sand.

If everyone else stopped paying, how long do you think it would take for them to move us to Medicare for All?

Yeah, this isn't going to go the way people think it's going to go.

In an ideal world, yes. The medical debt would simply disappear and the providers would simply accept that they'll make slightly less profit overall. But that isn't the world we live in. That will never happen.

Providers are going to look at this uncollected debt and see it as unrealized profit. In their minds, they "deserve" to make $X million in profits, and if those unpaid bills cut into that, they are just going to raise prices accordingly (along with a little extra) to make up for it. This means that insurance companies will be paying more, and those who can afford to pay in the first place will be charged more as well.

Insurance companies are not going to allow this to stand either. Their increased costs (and a little extra on top for them) will be passed onto their customers in the form of higher premiums, higher deductibles, and less coverage. This will cause people to be priced out of the healthcare market and ultimately cause even more people to default on their medical bills, causing a feedback loop.

At the end of the day, those who are ultimately paying for health insurance and covering some of their costs out of pocket are going to end up paying a hell of a lot more, essentially subsidizing the people who are having their existing medical debt discharged. This feedback loop could very quickly spiral out of control, leaving hospitals without funding as people just decide to say "fuck it" and ignore their medical bills entirely since there's no consequence for doing so. This will cause providers and hospitals to close up shop, leaving the entire area worse off and with fewer options, further exacerbating the feedback loop.

If customers are ultimately not going to be held accountable for the debt, we need to switch to a universal healthcare system, because the system as it is isn't sustainable. If the government isn't going to pay, and the insurance companies aren't going to pay, and the customers either can't afford to pay or just don't bother to because they can't be held accountable, who's going to?

Because spending bills need to originate in the House and pass the Senate.

The point of those things is that by doing that, he'll more directly impact his own supporters who likely vary the maturity of that debt in the gimme gimme red states that take a lot more than they contribute while complaining about nebulous "handouts" that really piss them off

Lighten up will ya

There are a number of states that forbid it limit this practice. Should I make some stupid comment about Republicans failing to mention context? Oops, I guess I did...

The CFPB said that medical debt is a poor predictor of an individual’s ability to repay a loan.

Having emergency medical care makes one a poor credit risk? Medical care isn't a loan or contract we agree to having understood the terms. It is often thrust upon us.

And this has nothing to do with 2008. People with poor scores were getting variable-rate mortgages that later exploded past their ability to pay. How many times did you hear about payments going double, or more, what they had been? That exact thing happened to my first wife.

I only own a home because it's a Habitat for Humanity mortgage, which ignored my medical debt. If I could have magically removed my medical debt from my credit rating, my credit was perfect. This opens the opportunity to people in situations like mine was.

Oh, I didn't realize mortgages are the only thing affected by credit. Oh, wait, that's completely fucking stupid.