2 women took a page our of John Oliver's playbook and erased 1.5 million in medical debt

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/09/675070442/how-2-new-york-women-erased-1-5-million-in-medical-debt-for-hundreds-of-stranger

You may remember that John Oliver set up a debt collector company and spent $60,000 dollars of his own money to buy up $15 million dollars worth of medical debt and forgive it on his show.

Now, two women from New York essentially did what he did by raising $12,500 and turning it over to a non-profit known as R-I-P Medical Debt. From there the company leveraged that money to relieve $1,500,000 of medical debt for hundreds to people.

The kicker for me on this story (and John's as well) is just how little it costs to buy and erase medical debt and how much it actually costs people to get medical services. I'd say it's pretty clear that we could be making our healthcare system be cheaper than it actually is based on stories like these.

What’s medical debt?

Basically what happens is that companies give up on getting paid back on the debt owed to them. They then try and sell that debt owed, in order to recoup some of their losses.

I'm aware of how it works, the point is, if they just offered cheaper rates to begin with they would get more (not all) people to pay them.

That's why we need to regulate the healthcare industry. Then we can talk about healthcare for all.

lol republicans constantly bitch about over-regulation. So when you say that we need to regulate the healthcare industry I just see it as you saying, "If I get people onboard with fighting me over this thing that I don't want, they will never get around to fighting me over this thing I want even less."

Tell me how I'm wrong.

@Serraph105: Sorry but once the government is getting involved in paying your fees then it needs to be regulated. $6000 for a CT scan? $3000 for an X-ray, $800 a night for a hospital bed?

They can charge whatever they want and why wouldn't they when they know the government will fit the bill.

You mean Oliver spent 60.000 of HBO´s money.

But well-done from these two women and I do agree that it´s pretty crazy that 12.5k can buy 1.5mill worth of debt. But that is the market of debt. The debt is usually from people who would never be able to repay it and there is zero chance of anyone collecting it.

Indeed it is crazy. In fact my quick math says that 12.5k saved 120 times the amount of debt it went towards forgiving.

Not a fan of his, but this brings attention to something that needed attention. Health care is expensive as shit and needs to be figured out. Bravo for the two women and John Oliver for doing that.

@blackhairedhero: Exactly the opposite. Insurance companies being fractured limits their ability to collectively bargain for their customers. So when Lantus wants to charge $300 for a bottle of insulin, they can play the insurance providers off each other. If we were all under one collective provider, that provider can say “if you want to have access to the most wealthy market in the world, then you will only charge us $180 per bottle.”

Medicare does that already. Medicare billing codes exist because the government pays a discounted price (about 80 cents on the dollar) for everything we as the privately insured do. Medicaid pays even less. Being that the US government is the largest insurance provider in America, they can get away with that or you as pharmaceutical company or hospital lose access to a huge amount of customers.

@Baconstrip78: The current plan doesn't work though. I got Kidney stones once about a year ago and went to the hospital.( I had no clue what was going on just an absolute terrible pain). I spent about an hour there got a CT scan an Xray and was sent on my way. I immediately blew out my $1500 deductable and when I looked at what the insurance paid out it was nearly 12 thousand dollars. How the **** is that feasible? Hospitals need a limit on that shit.

You guys in the US when you get sick should just book a room on a 5* hotel to save money.

@blackhairedhero: Totally agree. Single payer.

I and my family have worked in every facet of the medical industry for decades, and the stuff that goes on would blow your mind. Doctors and providers absolutely exploit the system. So do insurance companies. There are minimal competition mechanisms of any kind, so all the usual free market rhetoric simply doesn't apply. These people aren't producing widgets that people can shop around for beforehand or go without if the price is too high. Hell, most of the time there isn't even any transparency.

The whole system is broken and stupid. The bills you get arent actually what your insurance pays most of the time. I had to get a CT scan done, and the bill says something like 2000$. But the insurance actually only pays 500$. It's some dumb game they play. They can't charge what they actually want to get paid, because then the insurances would pay less than that. Stupid thing is, if you dont have insurance, then you are responsible for the 2000$ not the 500$ that the insurance would pay.

Hospital stays are massively expensive, but i think that's because all these hospitals have enormous overheads. You're paying for all the nurses, technicians, pensions, etc. etc.

@mattbbpl: I agree. Healthcare cannot ever work in a free market sense because it is inherently not a free market due to the extremely high asymmetrical information flow and the even higher inequality of bargaining power.

When the consequences real or perceived are misery, pain, and potentially death and one side has the problem and the other side has all the information and controls access to the solutions and where 'do nothing, don't buy' is not an option.....that cannot be a free market.

Which is why I laugh when people in the US defend this on free market principles....it tells me that they don't know what a free market is and are simply repeating trite phrases.

i would actually prefer a free market system that brings down the cost of health care. But that would mean deregulation of the health care industry in significant ways. Make it easier for students to pursue medical profession. Last time I checked you need a 4.0 gpa to become a doctor. A grade is just a number, and setting the number so high ignores the potential for people to grow into these roles if given a chance. Drop the barrier of entry, and plenty of "unqualified" doctors will become qualified. Its never been easier to train doctors with all the available technologies. We can literally make VR head sets that can be used for med students to get thousands of hours of practice within an year instead of 10 years like in the past. Nurses are important but they can be trained for cheaper as well. Technology is the ultimate equalizer. Get those VR headset with doctor/surgeon sims out there and you will have a huge market of trained doctors. The only thing you won't have anymore are doctors driving around in benz.

Bottom line, government providing these services is still cheaper than the corrupt insurance industry/ health care fraud system that is currently the standard in the US. But there is more than just one way to get affordable health care. Instead of taking the route of all the other countries in the world, ie universal healthcare, I think the US should innovate with a free market system that the rest of the world can emulate to get costs under control. Government provided services is inefficient because of politician scumbags/union scum bags / corporate scum bags / courts scumbags all getting together to make a mess of things but even with all those scum bags its still a better option than the insurance fraud thats currently the standard. Thats how bad things are currently in the US. When the government option is cheaper than the "free market" system, you know things are seriously F'd up.

Wow, that gives me so many ideas. My dad just got a $45,000 bill for his appendix removed and my brother has over $300,000 for getting shot in the chest at a gas station from an idiot trying to steal his truck. Hmm cool thread, thanks

@blaznwiipspman1: Good idea with the VR thing. Along with technology, I think people in general are more educated in medical terms just from having access to WebMD or Google.

Oh, and YouTube lol

Don´t get too good ideas, it takes years of not paying before it becomes as cheap as the ones Oliver and these women bought.

Also, your dad and brother have to be seen as poor, so not living in any kind of decent house, no work and all on welfare.

@Jacanuk: Eh, knew there's a catch.

Well of course the cost of the debt went down. Those people were not paying their debt, so collectors are going to cut their losses with people who are liabilities. Those people who had their debt erased thanks to these woman are probably not going to qualify for a loan anytime soon, nor should they.

Because as everyone knows being bankrupted by medical costs means you're a terrible person. Conservative logic......me me me.

@LJS9502_basic: lolwut? I didn't mention myself at all in that post. Liberal logic...nothing but presumptions.

But tell me, what makes you think that every single person who had their debt forgiven thanks to these women were actually incapable of making any kind of payments? If they were able to forgive over 1.5M of debt with just 12.5K means that those people haven't paid a dime in a long time. They may have had a favor done for them by some nice (if naive) people, but they didn't learn any lessons from it.

Having worked for collectors, I can tell you the overwhelming majority of people in debt are there by choice, and they just dig themselves further. They can get out, they just choose not to.

Do you conservatives ever deal in facts? The single biggest debt issue is medical bills. Period.

I'd just ignore him. He doesn't really add much.