discussion Study: Americans with medical debt hits 100M, nearly 20M "will never pay it off"

[Communion]

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An estimated 100 million people in the U.S. — 41% of all adults — have healthcare debt.

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Medical treatment generally has no predictable upfront price and, there is no cap on what we might owe. And, given our health system’s prices, the amount can be more than the value of the family home if incurred for a hospital stay.

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Think about how different educational debts are from those incurred in healthcare. In one case, profiled by Kaiser Health News, the parents of twins, who were born at 30 weeks, faced out-of-pocket bills of about $80,000 stemming from charges in neonatal intensive care and other care that insurance didn’t cover. In another case, a couple ended up owing $250,000 when one spouse went to the emergency room with an intestinal obstruction that required multiple surgeries. They had to declare bankruptcy and lost their home. Even smaller bills lead to trashed credits ratings, cashing in retirement accounts and taking on second jobs; in surveys, half of adults in the U.S. say they don’t have cash to pay an unexpected $500 medical bill.

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 In a KFF poll, 1 in 7 people with healthcare debt said they’d been denied care by a provider because of unpaid bills, sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars.

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Medical debt collection has typically been outsourced to aggressive private agents and the for-profit medical debt collection industry; there are few guardrails. Recently, consumer credit reporting agencies have said they will no longer put small medical debts on credit reports and remove medical debts that have been paid. For many people, that will take years. Some 18% of Americans with healthcare debt said they never expect to be able to pay the debt off.

100 Million People in America Are Saddled With Health Care Debt - KHN

Edited August 2, 2022 by Communion

[greeneyedsoul]

The US is a shithole. 

[PrettyHurts]

very normal country 

[A Bomb]

We have money for Israel, and Ukraine tho.  You don't understand economics! Those people need to be in debt. 

[Brysexual]

Terrible how the most developed country in the world can’t afford to provide universal access to healthcare that won’t put people in a life time Worth of debt. 

[Armani?]

"Pull yourselves by your bootstraps"

[Into The Void]

Only 20 million?

[rihannabiggestfan]

and Biden won't do anything about it because he's right-wing like Trump.

[Communion]

58 minutes ago, Insanity said:

Only 20 million?

Roughly 10% of American adults, sis!

[stevyy]

This is still so insane to me. I mean in Germany, Bismarck invented the health care system in 1883. I have 0 idea why the US refuses to have a working system. 

[Cain]

3 minutes ago, stevyy said:

This is still so insane to me. I mean in Germany, Bismarck invented the health care system in 1883. I have 0 idea why the US refuses to have a working system. 

Because anything that’s good for the overall population is ‘c0mMuNism!’

Edited August 3, 2022 by Cain

[Into The Void]

6 hours ago, Communion said:

Roughly 10% of American adults, sis!

I figured it would honestly be more lol 

[Chemist]

Having a medical debt is truly an only American concept 

[Аshanti]

5 hours ago, stevyy said:

This is still so insane to me. I mean in Germany, Bismarck invented the health care system in 1883. I have 0 idea why the US refuses to have a working system. 

Because insurance is a huge ass industry. Rich people want poor people to be poor and sick.

[Kevin Parker]

[stevyy]

As I was saying... since most of Europe and the developed world has had an universal health care system since the... 1920s or so (the latest)... The US is refusing to do it. 

 

Imma list the presidents now, who refused to give The United States health care:

 

Woodrow Wildon - D

Warren G. Harding - R

Calvin Coolidge - R

Herbert Hoover - R

Franklin D. Roosevelt - D

Harry S. Truman - D

Dwight D. Eisenhower - R

John F. Kennedy - D

Lyndon B. Johnson - D

Richard Nixon - R

Gerald Ford - R

Jimmy Carter - D

Ronald Reagan - R

George H. W. Bush - R

Bill Clinton - D

George W. Bush - R

Barack Obama - D

Donald Trump - R

Joe Biden - D

 

They all laughed at the poor and probably said: Die b!tch. And the US GP was like "Yeah, dying. Nice!"

 

I can't. The US GP has to chase their entire political class out of the country at this point. The system is rotten in its very core. Life Expentancy in the US is also DEcreasing... regressing to the early 70s. I have to give it Mr. Obama... at least he tried. 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by stevyy

[Daddy]

Guns, medical dept and a broken system. THE DREAM

[John Slayne]

the laughing stock of the world

 

imagine being the richest country in the world and not even providing the basics to your population, like healthcare...