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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

#281

Post by notch656a »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #279
notch656a wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can eat "ok" on $2 a day?

Yes if you are careful, but that isn't what I said. You are assuming that the base spent on food is 0 + 2 when that wasn't what I said.

>difference between eating ok and not eating.

>difference

> eating ok

> not eating

If you're not eating it follows you're eating $0 worth of food. So it is what you said, unless you're implying someone is spending money on food without eating any of it.

I'm interested in the meals you suggest that you think are "eating ok" while maintaining the nutrition to work, $2 all in per day (food cost + transport to buy the food + cost to cook the food + depreciation on any utinsils / cookware).

Also keep in mind many poor people live in a food desert so if you're counting on discount food you're gonna need a bus ticket or a hell of a long walk once in awhile.

As an aside, it's worth noting if your suggestion is true and one can truly eat ok on $2 a day, then the median medical debt holder who spends say $4 a day on food can easily pay off their loans in a few years following your cooking advice. You just came up with a way for them to produce $2 / day without any additional income.

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

#282

Post by sahila »

willcipriano wrote: post #116

> Elizabeth Woodruff drained her retirement account and took on three jobs after she and her husband were sued for nearly $10,000 by the New York hospital where his infected leg was amputated. I'm not sure what sort of retirement they had planned to have on less than 10k, but it looks like in this case the hospital knew they could afford to pay but preferred not to. When people use number of jobs rather than hours wo…

> When people use number of jobs rather than hours worked per week it's typically beacuse number of jobs is greater than one and hours is less than forty.

It’s hard to imagine a person wanting to take on multiple jobs if instead they had the option to work one for the needed amount of hours and pay. Hours at one job != hours at three jobs, especially when you add in commuting time and lack of benefits because you’re not full time.

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

#283

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

notch656a wrote: post #80

Also known as 100M people who may have died without medical care, but were provided it despite their inability to pay for it. If you remove the ability for medical workers to seek payment for their services, most medical workers are just gonna say fuck it and not work for free. Medical care providers have families they have to feed too.

The "why are people expecting doctors to work for free?" argument is such a bad faith take.

You know damn well that nobody is expecting doctors to work without pay. I refuse to believe someone could actually believe such an idiotic argument is being made. So why act like it is?

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

#284

Post by chaps »

notch656a wrote: post #270
chaps wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking one person's experience, who has mild medical expenses and applying their situation to loads of poor people as if their experience exemplifies the experiences of millions. Frankly, that's disgusting and while I don't wish you awful medical debt, it sounds like you could stand to be humbled by some. Think of bigger medical expenses over the same period -- 10k. That's 20/day. 100k -- 200/day. Now add ACA…

>You're taking one person's experience, who has mild medical "You" being the parent OPs who I responded to who introduced the nation of $1000, which happens to be above the median for my state and most states shown in the article? Remember I'm RESPONDING to the $1000 comment, not introducing the figure. But maybe they said something about the $1000 you agreed about, so you went with the disingenuous approach of only…

I'm really not sure how a median of $1000 is supposed to make your point any better.

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

#285

Post by notch656a »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #283
notch656a wrote: post #80

Also known as 100M people who may have died without medical care, but were provided it despite their inability to pay for it. If you remove the ability for medical workers to seek payment for their services, most medical workers are just gonna say fuck it and not work for free. Medical care providers have families they have to feed too.

The "why are people expecting doctors to work for free?" argument is such a bad faith take. You know damn well that nobody is expecting doctors to work without pay. I refuse to believe someone could actually believe such an idiotic argument is being made. So why act like it is?

Ah I see, doctors aren't supposed to work for free, just other taxpayers (who most likely make far less than a doctor) working for free to pay the (much higher salary) to cover someone elses expenses. Got it.

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

#286

Post by suture »

rayiner wrote: post #262
suture wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely wrong in thinking Gerrymandering does not affect Congressional popular vote. It absolutely does. Especially in non-Presidential years. There are secondary effects you are ignoring with this incorrect belief. In recent years, since SCOTUS abandoned voting rights, the closure of polling stations also affects voting numbers. We do not have proportional representation in the House, and the person with…

> You are absolutely wrong in thinking Gerrymandering does not affect Congressional popular vote. Gerrymandering does not even consistently hurt democrats in the number of House seats. Dems in 2020 won the same number of seats as their share of the Congressional popular vote. > There are secondary effects you are ignoring with this incorrect belief. In recent years, since SCOTUS abandoned voting rights, the closure o…

You are very much wrong in your assessments. Closing hundreds of polling locations absolutely affects voting outcomes and number of voters. That isn’t a big lie. It is a provable fact. There is no point in discussing this topic with someone who refuses to acknowledge indisputable facts.

You are completely wrong on your assessment regarding Gerrymandering. You clearly don’t understand how total national vote total has nothing to do with whether or not Gerrymandering causes one party to have more seats than they otherwise ought to have. Here’s a hint: A Representative from California res presents far more people than the one from North Dakota. Here’s another hint: Heavily Democratic distinct overwhelmingly votes Democrat while three districts with slight majority Republican vote elect Republicans and the overall vote totals are mostly even. Both hints must be used to see why overall vote total means nothing when it comes to determining if Congressional representation is skewed.

You are wildly wrong in your views.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/report-more-tha...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-pollin...

https://www.salon.com/2019/09/12/report-reveals-nearly-1700-...

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

#287

Post by DavidPeiffer »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #280
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes services are rendered which insurance does not deem required, and then refuses to pay for, and some items are simply not covered at all. For example, insulin may be covered by insurance, but needles and syringes are not. On top of that, it's basically impossible to anticipate the cost ahead of time for many procedures. One person I know was quoted $2,000 to $30,000 for a portion of a surgery that is not cov…

> Sometimes services are rendered which insurance does not deem required, and then refuses to pay for This shouldn't be legal. Do insurance companies even employ actual medical doctors that are educated, trained, and experienced in health care so that they're qualified to make these calls?

They do employ medical doctors to review cases, give prior authorization for specific treatments and diagnostic tests, etc. There can also be doctor to doctor calls to explain why a particular item was justified. The thought of some random doctor reviewing your file and the notes generated from a visit and making a determination having never seen you sucks. It's been passed ok'd as "ensuring doctors are following the best practices and ensuring consistent standards of care", which it may to an extent.

As with most aspects of US healthcare, when viewed through through the perspective of the recipient, it's atrocious. Every medical facility requires you to sign a paper that you'll pay all the medical expenses if they aren't covered by insurance. They can't give you an estimate that they promise they'll stick to in terms of cost. There's no way a non-doctor could know what the typical course of treatment would be, so they're stuck trying to get straight answers from an insurance company if they don't want a surprise massive bill.

Provider bills insurance an insane amount which is then arbitrarily discounted. Provider can't bill different amounts for insured or uninsured patients (illegal from my understanding). If insurance doesn't cover something, it's between the patient and provider to settle.

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

#288

Post by antisthenes »

kube-system wrote: post #232
antisthenes wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I submit my debt? Or is it kind of a site that buys debt that the hospital has 0% chance of collecting anyway?

"Buying debt" is analogous to "debt sent to collections" So yes, the latter. Basically, that site helps people to not get phone calls about bills they were never going to pay.

Right, which is nice, I guess, but it's more of a feel-good project for those who run it, rather than actual help.

99% of hospitals have financial assistance programs that will either completely eliminate your debt or reduce it by a substantial amount if you fall under a certain bracket of income (usually some multiple 3x or 4x poverty level), which essentially does the same thing.

It doesn't address the fact that hospitals prices ballooned out of control due to perverse incentives with insurance companies and dumb regulation that limits profits to a percentage (incentivizing absolute increases in prices, rather than price controls like NHS does)

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

#289

Post by agubelu »

egberts1 wrote: post #223
starik36 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the bankruptcy stick around on the credit report for 7 years?

Yep but if you add a note for the reason of bankruptcy into your credit application, the credit provider would still take that into consideration and STILL charge you a higher interest rate. Depending on the absolved medical debt (being discharged by your bankruptcy), and its would-be crushing monthly payments, the higher interest rate of your new (mortgage/credit) credit lines and its monthly payments are often less…

As someone from the other side of the Atlantic, I've always been surprised at how much people in the US rely on debt and credit lines for their daily lives (besides very infrequent, very expensive purchases such as a house). I'm personally extremely wary of spending money I don't have.

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

#290

Post by mindslight »

pocketero-dan wrote: post #256
sparklingmango wrote: post #189

Some standout stats for me: - Hospitals recorded their most profitable year on record in 2019, notching an aggregate profit margin of 7.6% - From 2012 to 2016, prices for medical care surged 16%, almost four times the rate of overall inflation - Last year the average annual deductible for a single worker with job-based coverage topped $1,400, almost four times what it was in 2006... Family deductibles can top $10,000…

Proposed colossal change: a common practice of paying for healthcare out of pocket, instead of through healthcare insurance. Yes, this sounds unreasonable right now because prices are so high. But bear with me for a second. Most healthcare in the US is paid through insurance. Insurance creates moral hazard. Insured patients generally don't even need to know the prices of what they're buying, much less negotiate those…

Without competition, there is no avenue for "negotiation". And you don't even have to go as far as you've described - simply mandating that providers can only charge uniform prices across all payers (ie end their collusion with "insurance" companies), along with eliminating the laws that allow providers to substantiate bills without needing to form contracts (ie agreeing to prices or shop rates up front), would go a long way towards triaging the immediate insanity.
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