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Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

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Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#41

Post by suture »

pjc50 wrote: post #39
suture wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it odd that when talking about inflation or moral hazard people bring up money spent given to individuals but not about the trillions spent given to businesses. I think it is immoral for a country as wealthy as the United States to have so many people with medical debt. There should be universal, almost free healthcare. The moral imperative is far more important to me than considerations about inflation.

Reminds me of my joke policy that meets many people's stated goals yet would be universally unpopular: the government should fight inflation by confiscating money from billionaires and then destroying it.

Very nice. That would abrogate the concern that taxing the wealthy is socialist redistribution. Can’t have that accusation if you just burn it!

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#42

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

docdeek wrote: post #14
lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats do not control the Senate.

There are 48 Democrat Sentors and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, one of whom has sought the Democratic nomination for President. That’s 50 votes, plus the Democratic VP to break any tie. While it might be correct to say the Democrats do not have a majority in the Senate, its not incorrect to say they do control the Senate.

unless you want to delete the philibuster, that's a long way from the 60 votes you need.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#43

Post by swarnie »

Anyone fancy giving universal healthcare another stab?

Either to save lives: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-health-...

Or to save money: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2200536119

The aversion to it honestly baffles me.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#44

Post by suture »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #25
suture wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it odd that when talking about inflation or moral hazard people bring up money spent given to individuals but not about the trillions spent given to businesses. I think it is immoral for a country as wealthy as the United States to have so many people with medical debt. There should be universal, almost free healthcare. The moral imperative is far more important to me than considerations about inflation.

I dislike adding morals into this discussion. However, there is a real question of whether society in its current state can, in fact, function well. I personally would argue that right now society is very dysfunctional and that dysfunction is primarily benefiting those at the top. And the usual issue with dysfunctional societies is that they tend to fall apart. Now, reasonable person would argue that would not be a g…

I very much agree overall with your observations and points. I do think though that one should always consider moral aspects to policies and decision making since peoples’ lives are affected. Making policy based on economic theory without considering moral aspects seems like a bad idea in general.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#45

Post by treis »

refurb wrote: post #29
rxhernandez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In TFA: "A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000."

Again, I “owed” that when my kid was born. Deductible plus co-insurance added up to about that. Not saying some people don’t have “bad” medical debt (they can’t repay) but to lump in all debt as “bad” is silly. Edit: Oh, it's a poll. Similar to the poll that said "Households earnings more than $250,000 are stuggling financially". I mean, it's a poll? Did you expect people to say "nah, I have medical debt but I can ha…

If you could or did pay it off then you wouldn't have been counted in the survey.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#47

Post by treis »

abledon wrote: post #15

so 30% of the country's population has medical debt.. what the hell

It's an entire industry based on fraud and deception. My wife recently had surgery and we got hit with a $1500 surprise facility fee. It likely won't be covered by insurance due to some fuckery around not reimbursing the fee if the in plan physician owns the facility.

We knew enough to ask about the anesthesiologist and any surgery assistants. But they came up with some new bullshit and got us. When the world gets wise to this nonsense they'll come up with something else. It's a business deeply rooted and based on scamming their customers.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#48

Post by geoduck14 »

abledon wrote: post #15

so 30% of the country's population has medical debt.. what the hell

I don't see why this is a bad number. It is easy to get on a 0% payment plan for medical procedures, or to contest a medical bill that is "a debt" that will get paid eventually.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#49

Post by burkaman »

refurb wrote: post #29
rxhernandez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In TFA: "A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000."

Again, I “owed” that when my kid was born. Deductible plus co-insurance added up to about that. Not saying some people don’t have “bad” medical debt (they can’t repay) but to lump in all debt as “bad” is silly. Edit: Oh, it's a poll. Similar to the poll that said "Households earnings more than $250,000 are stuggling financially". I mean, it's a poll? Did you expect people to say "nah, I have medical debt but I can ha…

Please just read the article if you want to argue about it, it's not that long.

> And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don't expect to ever pay it off.

That's 20 million people.

> About 1 in 7 people with debt said they've been denied access to a hospital, doctor, or other provider because of unpaid bills, according to the poll.

That's 14 million people.

> An even greater share ― about two-thirds ― have put off care they or a family member need because of cost.

That's 66 million people.

> Half of U.S. adults don't have the cash to cover an unexpected $500 health care bill

That's 129 million people.

Again, please read the whole thing, whether or not you want to comment more. This is important information for US residents.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#50

Post by tdehnel »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
baremetal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milton Friedman famously said: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

Well, he's wrong, given that output has been knocked about by a large number of non-monetary factors such as COVID, supply chain issues, the war with Russia, and (yet again) oil and gas.

The way I see it, even if there’s a war or Covid or whatever, if people don’t have more money to spend, they can’t pay higher prices. Then you get a recession.

If they do have the money (because you printed more) they pay the higher prices. Then you get inflation.

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