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John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

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Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#271
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figured it was something like this. This is great news if you're trying to get rid of bill collectors. Just make some "proof" on "company letterhead" that the debt has been cleared. It's no more scummy than harassing collectors.

sounds like a business model almost as slimy as those collecting expired debt, but at least if i was selling forged documents i could sleep at night.

No need for a slimy business model, the debtor can generate these documents themselves.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#272

You went all aspie on it and missed the point.

Personal attacks and name-calling are not allowed here. Please (re)-read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civil, substantive comments, or not posting.

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We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846818 and marked it off-topic.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#273
post #43

As a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was definitely worth it. This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced) amplified by background laughter. He has the right idea and did the right thing but I persona…

I like a lot of his jokes, but I think there are too many of them, and too many are just "hey, here's a meme I remembered!" But without them, I think his show would fall flat with most of his audience, so I don't think he really has a choice about them at this point.

Yeah, just a bunch of absurd similes does not represent good writing.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#274
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still annual maximums, in-network coverage, PMO, HMO, etc. The minimums can be pretty basic. It looks like the ACA doesn't really do anything to change the picture for a $474,000 medical bill. The guy got charged $39 each for over 200 glucose checks. That's the price of a new meter for every check.

Actually, annual maximums on ("essential") benefits are illegal under the ACA[1] - the only "annual maximums" allowed are for {deductible, out of pocket}, at which point they are supposed to cover 100% of covered claims. I don't obviously see the specific anecdote you're discussing in the thread, so I can't tell if what transpired is because it (somehow) didn't blow either of those thresholds, or because it wasn't an…

Thanks for correcting me. I could've sworn I saw annual maximums when I looked on healthcare.gov but maybe I mistook the max out of pocket for a max annual.

The example I used is the case presented in the video. I just googled for Bob Weinkauf.

http://writingshares.com/cnn-anderson-cooper-medical-news-vi...

I was also curious when this happened. Looks likely to be under the ACA unless it took years to hit the news though.

So I don't know. Maybe he went to the emergency room and it was out of network under his plan, leaving him to shoulder the costs. I didn't dig much after skimming for an approximate date.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#275
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see it on Facebook: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id...

also in australia: "Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed."

Sorry, was on my phone. This works:

https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/videos/912968418832...

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#276
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt doesn't magically (or legally) stop existing after a set period of time. It's just that legal means to enforce collection expire. I once (in the early 1990s) refused to pay a company I was very unhappy with -- IIRC it was Verizon. They cancelled my service, tried to collect, then sold the debt after a while. I still get these offers to settle the debt for 70% less than the total -- but the letters always include…

But it had to have affected your credit to some degree in the past though, right?

Yes. I was so pissed off with that company that I refused to pay "on principle", but they were pretty dubious principles actually — I really did owe the money, and nonpayment was probably not in my own best interests.

My failure to pay stayed as a negative event ("serious delinquency") on my credit report with each of the major credit bureaus, for roughly 7 years, just like it is supposed to. Then it disappeared.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#277
Can the debt John forgave be resurrected by another debt collection agency?

The video mentioned several scenarios where debt that's seemingly past it collection date or expired is still desired by these collection companies.

Or is forgiving the debt officially the only way of forever getting rid of it without fear of it coming back from the dead.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#278
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also in australia: "Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed."

Sorry, was on my phone. This works: https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/videos/912968418832...

that one works, thanks!

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#280
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of said facts and an alternative interpretation of them?

His interpretation of the Venezuelan crisis. He pointed to the price of oil driving the issue. Nowhere did he mention the crazy socialist/populist programs that Chavez and his successor Maduro. The main problem in Venezuela is the erosion of property rights. Nowhere in the report was this mentioned.

I don't think his interpretation was total, complete or absolute. He basically refrained from commenting on it, and made very direct jokes on basic aspects of the situation, while introducing it via a proximate cause (oil price crashing led to instability - it's the lack of diversified economy that made them vulnerable, and it's usually caused by shortsighted natural resource expolitation, blablabla, but that's just correlated with the erosion of property rights, and not necessarily causally).

I'm trying to decide if his omission is okay or not.

Conservative (and I intend that as a swearword) hit-media present his lack of condemnation of "socialism" as a wrongdoing. Which certainly can be argued, that since he got airtime, he has some responsibility to educate, especially if he choose to talk about the topic.

However, I don't think he is a politology scholar, so not using a word so misued as socialism is probably a smart thing on his part, and sticking to the criticism of the consequences of the policies themselves is also an okay-ish solution.

I think shows what a dictatorship leads to is more important than condemning whatever ideology you think lead to it. After all, autorism always mutates the ideology it uses to justify itself, usually subverting all of the original ideas related to it in about 5 minutes after gaining power.

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