White House aiming to scrub medical debt from people’s credit scores, which could up ratings for mil

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Steve N, Sep 22, 2023.

  1. Par10

    Par10 Well-Known Member

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    And that 5% was quickly eaten up by the increased cost that they added to medical equipment in the form of taxes.
     
  2. Josh77

    Josh77 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is no reason why we should not have universal health care. We are just throwing money away in other sectors. The Pentagon can only account for 39% of it's total assets when they are audited. Trillions just disappearing into the nether. It's about greed and control, preying on the sick and helpless, getting them in a death spiral of medical debt that they will be shackled with until they die, while many essential medications and treatments are astronomically high in price, with insurance not wanting to approve treatments. It is criminal that the greatest country on Earth is so ****ed up in this regard. The choice for many is either to suffer horribly until they die or go into massive debt.
     
  3. Cubed

    Cubed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not sure what that has to do with adding rent to it, but realistically, if a credit score is supposed to be an accurate reflection of someone's ability to pay something back, then it should encapsulate everything they pay and don't pay.
     
  4. Par10

    Par10 Well-Known Member

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    I see this as being different. Credit reporting is being used for all kinds of ways to make your life miserable but I understand the need. When you have a huge hospital bill, you can pay that back in small amounts and as long as you are making progress, it should be fine. You shouldn't loose your ability to find a place to live because you broke your leg two years ago. Maxing out 20 credit cards is a different story. It shows that you willingly was being stupid with your credit. The whole credit reporting thing is a mess anyway. You can have perfect credit, go buy a car and they shop around for a loan. You suddenly get hit with 10 inquiries and your score drops 100 points. You can pay on line and something weird happens and the payment never goes through. Suddenly you find out that you've got a late payment and your score drops 150 points over a $25 computer error. Yes, both happened to me.
     
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  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Donor

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    Probably similar to the "rent moratorium" imposed by the Biden Administration. People went 2 years thinking they didn't have to pay, not giving much thought to how their credit score was going to be ruined, or whether anyone would ever allow them to rent again once it was all over. Now there's a mass wave of evictions going on.
    These people might have had a free ride for 2 years, but it's going to be very hard finding anyone willing to let them rent now.
     
  6. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    There are always side effects to these sort of policies; sometimes worse than the original problem these policies are trying to solve. This scrubbing medical debt from credit scores nonsense is really going to, in the long run, hurt the people it's allegedly trying to help.
     
  7. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Overwhelming medical expenses is the #2 reason for personal bankruptcy in this country.
     
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  8. Greenbeard

    Greenbeard Well-Known Member

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    Well, it also started revamping the business model for health care to one that rewards and demands efficiency and accountability for cost/quality outcomes. Meanwhile, relative health care costs are about the same today as they were when the ACA passed, which is extraordinary.
     
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  9. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It was an eviction moratorium and it was implemented by the prior administration and simply extended by Biden

    https://nlihc.org/resource/trump-ad...on-moratorium-guidance-benefit-landlords-over

    Not that the facts here are important

    Carry on
     
  10. DentalFloss

    DentalFloss Well-Known Member

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    Emphasis mine.

    And this, ladies and germs, is the bottom line. The left looks out at life and sees things they think every person should get, free to them but on the backs of those they deem to be "wealthy", which will differ vastly from person to person, and has no problem effectively setting up an organized but 'legal' crime ring to enforce those wealthy to pay even more than the ridiculous amount most of them pay now. As it stands, the top 1% pay like 50% of the income taxes, but that isn't good enough. Eat the rich, tax 'em till it hurts, whatever catchphrase you may wish to use are for all practical purposes some of the same rallying cries we've seen during communist 'revolutions', but the issue is that monetary system doesn't work... At best it makes everyone equally poor, and with lines around the block to get a loaf of bread to take back to their shitty little apartments with their dead-end jobs and just... endure.

    So, no, I am not interested in Uncle committing armed robbery to get me insurance, which I haven't spent a moment since about the time I was 23 without. It's not really even all that tough, get a good job that comes with insurance and stay there for a minute. Don't look at showing up for work as an optional thing, and do what you have to do to better yourself. But... So many of our lower class folk are lower class because they themselves put them into that position- be it from not graduating high school, having a litter of kids and/or a long criminal record by the time they're 20, many can hardly read or write, which means operating a computer, which is mandatory for all 'real' jobs (as opposed to a job a high-school student is qualified to do that for bizarre reasons some try to turn into a lifelong career with no hope for or chance of advancement due to their lack of skills like reading, writing, and the ability to use a computer with at least minimal competence.

    Of course, the left thinks you ought be able to buy a 3/2/2 with a view and support a family of 4 on McWages, but reality doesn't work that way... Even now, as minimum wages are under pressure to go to stupid levels, we're seeing human employee labor replaced by electronics and robotics. I don't know if it's a tech that is actually in use yet, but I saw a video of a robot that would cook and assemble the burgers all by itself, and while that comes with an up-front cost, when compared to paying people $15+/hour for all of eternity, frequently the automation will pay for itself in a matter of a few years, making it a no brainer, and leading to the good intentions behind wanting to raise the minimum wage turning into a gigantic job-eating catastrophe for those who are limited in skills enough that it's the only option they have.
     
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  11. DentalFloss

    DentalFloss Well-Known Member

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    So... In addition to putting minimum wage job holders out of work due to the inevitable automation that is an alternative to paying employees, you also want to put how many tens (hundreds? more?) of thousands of jobs out of work due to the government closing their business.

    Nice!

    Perhaps the best option, in that case, is for you to pick one of those dozens of other countries that already do what you want, rather than imposing it on one that isn't interested, eh? We're Americans, and we have always done things our own way, regardless of what the rest of the planet is doing. We were the first modern republic, the first with elected officials, the first with a peaceful transfer of power from one admin to the other (thanks, George), and we even fought a war against ourselves that cost a lot of lives to end the scourge of slavery. Sure, it would have been nice if that could have been done sans violence when the Constitution was first written, but they knew if they tried that, it would never have passed... And they were right, that simply was not a realistic option at the time.
     
  12. AKS

    AKS Well-Known Member

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    I might be on board with your rant (it's waay reaching btw) if medical wasn't so stupid expensive.
     
  13. AKS

    AKS Well-Known Member

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    So, the question is: is there a high correlation between people with high medical debt and those who don't pay their bills. Seems to me it's fine to NOT consider the former in the credit rating calculation.
     
  14. AKS

    AKS Well-Known Member

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    This is not accurate.
     
  15. Par10

    Par10 Well-Known Member

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    Not only is it expensive, it's ambiguous. How much is this going to cost? No one knows. You could get a bill that says something like, "The bill is $100,000, insurance paid $20,000, we wrote off $79,000, and you owe us $1000". Wait, you don't have insurance? The new price is only $60,000 but you need to pay it all. You don't have "our" insurance? You can't come here for your procedure at all so go to that crappy hospital across town.
     
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  16. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Fun rant while omitting parts of my post…

    Currently there are Billionaires paying negative rates because of the absurdity of our tax rates. Do you think that is acceptable?
     
  17. AKS

    AKS Well-Known Member

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    Is someone with high medical debt more risky? Maybe maybe not. I think it’s possible to calculate someone’s ability and willingness to pay off debt without considering medical.
     
  18. spiritgide

    spiritgide Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Low credit ratings come in part from not paying bills, (with can't and won't both in the same category) and in part from how much of your credit you use. If I increased my credit limit but didn't use more of it, my credit rating would improve. If I used most of it and was always on time paying in full, it would actually go down. Like many things, credit ratings are somewhat general rather than specific. But the objective was to reduce the huge variables in the availability of credit that was based on the individual lenders' impression of your character and credibility. That wasn't a bad metric if the lending officer was good at his job, but it was inconsistent. On the other hand, as credit ratings can be manipulated to some degree, it too has its flaws. It doesn't accurately reflect character- and that indeed is valuable, and does make a difference.
    Personally, I think the choice to lend money should be totally up to the lender who would be taking the risk, and the government should not try to make it a social entitlement.
     
  19. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Then...getting rid of the medical debt on your credit score DOES get rid of the debt?
     
  20. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Debt is debt and the amount debt you are able to manage includes ALL debt not selective debt. So why doesn't Biden help EVERYONE's credit and order that the persons first credit card cannot be counted a credit report to help out those people. As the left would put it why do you hate them so much
     
  21. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    What's the difference to your ability to take on some more debt between what you owe a doctor and what you owe Best Buy?
     
  22. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    What if what if what if. Does the government paying for it make it cost less? Where does the government get the money to pay for it? Why is the coverage not affordable under Obamacare? Everyone who gets it privately already are paying exponentially more both in premiums and deductibles and out of pocket to cover it for those who are on it.
     
  23. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    As deductibles and out of pockets tripled and small and private policy premiums shot so high people simply didn't purchase anymore.

    Obamacare Has Doubled the Cost of Individual Health Insurance

    upload_2023-9-25_13-41-46.png
    upload_2023-9-25_13-42-26.png
    https://www.heritage.org/health-car...-doubled-the-cost-individual-health-insurance

    And as already cited above the numbers who bought into Obamacare are not nearly what was predicted nor were the cost contained.
     
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  24. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Again how much did the government take in providing health care why don't we stop them taxing our money away so we can afford more healthcare. You act as if government provided health car has not cost to it it is all just free. A drug can be a GREAT drug and be off limits to some people due to cost so what? Cost can come down as more people use it and development and approval cost are recouped. GREAT DRUGS are most difficult to create and test and get approvals. Who do you propose take the risk in doing so and paying the cost?

    Yes, developed in the private sector, have you heard about all the improvements the private sector has made to insulin including EpiPen's and long term storage and lower does and yes even better cost, a type 1 diabetic can get their insulin for about $30, always could even before Biden tried to claim he made it so. Have you heard insulin is difficult to produce because it has to be produced biologically in very control conditions and safety measures? You really think the government could do it better?

    Then you'd be wrong, carry on. Do you understand how well the government runs things?

    Forty Percent of Baltimore’s Public Schools Do Not Have a Single Student Proficient in Math

    In a prior column, I was particularly moved by the frustration of a mother in Baltimore who complained that her son was in the top half of his class despite failing all but three of his classes. Graduating students without proficiency in English or Math is the worst possible path for these students, schools and society.

    The crisis continues with the new report that looked at 32 high schools administering the standardized test and found that 13 produced no students who proved proficient in math. Three-fourths of the Baltimore students taking the test were given the lowest possible score of one out of four.

    At the five “elite” high schools, only 11.4 percent of students were math proficient.

    We previously discussed the Baltimore public educational system as an example of where billions of dollars have been spent on a system with continuing failing scores and standards. Recent data adds another chilling statistic: 41 percent of students in the Baltimore system have a 1.0 (D) GPA or less.....

    https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/...not-have-a-single-student-proficient-in-math/

    And you want them in charge of your healthcare?

    You brought up foreign countries I was talking about them.

    And to their CUSTOMERS for business so they can provide the shareholders with their meager returns on the money they invested.

    Who is the government worker beholding to other than the Congress which will simply pass more money for them every year no matter how badly the do their job and how unhappy are the taxpayers.


     
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  25. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is also possible that someone who doesn't pay their medical bills will pay all other bills on time. It is just not likely. Thats why a credit score system is used.
     

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