this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
474 points (99.0% liked)

politics

19292 readers
1891 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

How is this not bigger news?! This is life changing for a great many Americans.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago (4 children)

people this is just crumbs

medical debt gets sold to debt buyers and once that is done it is just debt not medical debt and is not covered by the crumbs the Democrats are throwing

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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.

[–] Bakkoda 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

My strategy of literally ignoring collectors and sending all their calls to voicemail (for a surgery done in early 2023 in which I owed a couple thousand dollars) actually worked. I was called once a week or so for a little over a year and I haven't been contacted since June 2024.

I believe I was dinged on my credit score but the penalty was low single-digits, and it didn't affect my eligibility to buy a house. Your mileage will vary, and I definitely can't in good conscience recommend this as your first resort. Talk to a professional about risks and benefits of not paying certain debts if you can't or don't want to pay; some debts are not optional. But yeah, some are.

[–] Corkyskog 2 points 1 day ago

The strategy that seems to work the best is just to never interact with the debt from the start, it becomes almost impossible for them to collect.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

This is the second time I've heard this in as many days... do you have any sources I could look at?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

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.