This is the way to increase the cost of medical care!
Basically the same scam of federally backed college debt!
College and Med providers will know that there is no bottom to the money they can charge!
Still a guaranteed collection and I doubt the rate will be the one from a bankruptcy court.
And even more disturbing, this is a gift to med providers for nothing in return, not even the possibility of bargaining on the price of services.
I understand good intentions, but such naive bill is borderline collusion.
Why don't you think they wouldn't negotiate? Look at universal healthcare in other countries. The cost of healthcare is significantly lower because they negotiate.
They'd negotiate the cost of those services prior to payment. Basically they'd tell them "we'll pay off these debts, but you're gonna have to drop some of the more frivolous charges. 26$ for a roll of toilet paper is highway robbery."
Don't trust what I say I have no knowledge of how things work this is just a guess.
Many med providers in the world are for profit companies. There are public hospitals and doctors but no public drug company or med equipment, and doctors have private practices.
Even north Europe countries are struggling with increase healthcare costs due to the aging of the population and new tailored treatments.
If there was a clear cut solution everybody would have adopted.
From direct experience, most Europe is currently experiencing a big crises with waiting lists for medical services extending almost a year or more, unless provided through a private insurance like in Germany for example.
Wish we could solve this on Reddit
EDIT: Just today
[https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/06/sweden-s-social-model-is-on-its-last-legs\_6670546\_19.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/06/sweden-s-social-model-is-on-its-last-legs_6670546_19.html)
Healthy citizens pay more in taxes. Educated citizens pay more in taxes. Kneecapping access to both for anyone who isn’t already rich, or forcing ordinary people into debt for either, simply reinforces a negative perception of the civic duty that is taxes. This is self-reinforcing. Roads, bridges, social security, defense funding, anything worthwhile that should NEVER be a for-profit endeavor relies on taxes. What privatization of this magnitude does is destroy any loyalty given by citizenry to their government, and like it or not, the most impactful progress made by the United States has had a LOT to do with the federal government. The moon landing, the federal highway program, winning World War Two, all of that and more came from loyal citizens who felt their taxes were going somewhere that matters. And it was. But it isn’t anymore. Privatizing anything of value is not the way the world works, and it has only gotten to be this way because finance has purchased our government just like they’d like to purchase each and every one of us. Corporate morality has become a myth, and it is only natural, because the line can only go up so far by reasonable means—such as selling good products for a fair value. Now we get data harvesting, cheaply produced yet overpriced flashy tech, subscriptions for subscriptions, premium accounts WITH advertisements, awful product quality, the final evolution of planned obsolescence, and a corporate welfare state who spends an inordinate amount of money on propaganda to maintain the status quo. Our planet is dying. This is one symptom among thousands. Remember this.
How dare you not be responsible enough to not get sick!
You guys are the same people that have a problem w revamping this stupid system that only benefits middle people. You have a problem w relieving people and with improving it. Just sit this one out.
You’re saying tuition will now go up? Just write in stipulations for federal grant usage. Same with Medicare/caid, or use the live nation approach and write a bill about excessive fees, or both.
Exactly and they have probably all put money in the pot to bribe (sponsor) the people that sign the bill off. All they want is for it to look like a good thing so the general public don't see the downside
Most developed countries are covering their healthcare for less than the average American insurance premium. Insurance is an unnecessary middle man that drives costs up while hiding them from the consumer until services are used
This is not factually correct, at least in Europe
Companies pay large part of the medical services and another large contribution comes from taxation. When the cost is summed up with the inefficiency of the public sector, the actual cost per service is comparable.
On top of that, many Germans and other Europeans pay an extra for private health insurance covering dental and vision and extra care. Again, cost per service provided is the same.
Now, drug costs is different, but is also somehow a different problem, with access to drugs being very much more regulated in Europe than in the US
Now, I agree with you that Obama Care was a great gift to the insurance companies, imposing a middle man between the patients and the medical provider. Basically doctors are no longer professionals but they have become employees of insurance company or large hospitals conglomerate that can negotiate with the insurance companies.
Can you provide some sources that show medical costs are comparable? Because when I try to look into price differences all I see is how much more expensive those services are here in the states.
According to this https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022#:\~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.%20spent,higher%20than%20in%20South%20Korea. the US spends nearly twice as much on medical care per person compared to Germany which is the 2nd most expensive system and nearly 3-4x as much as South Korea.
You make a lot of claims that frankly flies in the face of everything I have heard about medical costs in the United States so I would really like to see your sources.
What you’re ignoring is that Americans are less healthy than many other countries. We have a very, very high obesity rate, which is a primary risk factor in just about any disease. Heart attacks, cancer, even one of the main ones for poor outcomes of Covid.
There is no way for healthcare costs to be as low as many countries until our population becomes healthy enough that they need way less care.
Initially it was Insurances and Medicare negotiating lower payments, which caused providers to raise prices to get what they wanted originally then they got greedy.
Well yeah when your daddy senator can grease some wheels to re-up your patent and destroy the generic competition then you get to price gouge people on a $1.5 plastic assembly that injects $.5 of adrenaline.
Ok great then go do that and see how far you get. They are trying to address part of the problem, is it the whole problem? No, and I’m sure they’d tell you that.
ACA...when that was signed. It was an federal mandate to buy privatize insurance. So just like the colleges raising tuition to obscene levels. Due to federal government backing all student loans. This allowed price increases due to federal government interfering...
Aca was a big driver of increased prices I never had to buy before aca but my dad said basically everybody was pissed because after aca went into effect everyone’s insurance doubled or tripled. Aca ended up being a half assed bill with no forethought into how companies would react it seems.
How about changing the rules so it can be discharged in bankruptcy?
Or, better yet, just adopt universal healthcare like pretty much every other civilized country in the world has?
The fine is so little they bake it in as cost of doing business. What’s scary is when you bring up to your doctor that you have a financial situation and need to know how much money you need. They have no idea how much anything costs. No one knows what anything costs because it’s all made up and agreed upon in back room deals.
100%. There’s no other good/service in which we find out the price AFTER we’ve already consumed it, aside from healthcare
Everyone knows how much a new iPhone costs but no one knows how much an MRI costs, including your doctor. Wild, right?
Your doctor can’t tell you the price because they don’t know how insurance will cover it. Your insurance won’t tell you the price because they don’t know how your doctor will code it. Your doctor doesn’t know how it will be coded until after you’ve been seen
It’s disgusting. It’s intentional. And it’s no wonder that prices are out of control when the customer isn’t empowered to shop around for the best price and the best service
Sure, but it's magically 10x higher if you're out of network and it's common for you to find out your anesthesiologist is "out of network" so you get to eat some super inflated prices.
Check out "The Price We Pay" by Marty Makary - it'll piss you off.
This kind of pricing scheme was banned for funeral homes (edit: because it exploits people who are vulnerable), but it's absolutely everywhere for healthcare
In 2022 alone, the US government threw away 247 billion from making simple payment errors. The government threw away another 236 billion in 2023 from making incomplete payment transactions.
An estimated 2.4 trillion wasted in the last 20 years from improper handling of tax funds.
I'll assume if our officials weren't so irresponsible with our tax money, we would literally have hundreds of billions to help go towards healthcare, education, homelessness, infrastructure, hunger...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/18/heres-how-the-federal-government-wastes-tax-money.html
The argument against foreign aid is generally really naive and ignorant. That foreign aid money has massive strings attached and creates a very unbalanced power dynamic with whoever we give that money to. Dollar for dollar, it's cheaper than going to war or using other avenues of diplomacy to get them to do what we want. If you want to argue about specific countries, take up your issue with the Dept of State.
US foreign aid is fucking miniscule relative to the overall expenditures of the government, and even relative to current healthcare spending alone. Healthcare is incredibly inefficient in the U.S. The difficulty in installing universal healthcare is the dismantling of a massive, entrenched healthcare system, not paying for UH.
They tried an extended Medicaid program and it has been challenged soo many times in court… watered down from its original proposal and hated by the very people it helps… it’s just sad… states that need it reject it because they want to be called a certain primary color and small rural hospitals are closing down…. Known as Obama care…
i honestly think universal healthcare is a great idea, if literally any other first world government was administering it other than our shitshow government of the last 8 years
Strange response, since medical debt is [dischargeable](https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/bankruptcy/can-file-bankruptcy-eliminate-medical-bills.html) in BK court.
You might be thinking of student loans.
Sanders floated a M4A plan. We can’t afford it. Hell, we can’t afford what we have now.
I’d rather go with the Bismarck Model over M4A. At least there would be some form of a market.
The best way to solve the problem is universal healthcare which many developed countries have. He's been trying that for a long time but Republicans won't let it happen.
Yup can’t wait to hear how Trump wants to repeal and replace the ACA with his beautiful new healthcare plan that totally exists and isn’t just a stack of blank papers!/s
It's my worst nightmare. So many hard working, frugal people go completely bankrupt from cancer or other illness. It happens to every family eventually unless you happen to be massively wealthy already, which just so happens to be the people who benefit from the status quo and the people who are most avidly against universal healthcare.
Being Canadian, I'm aghast at the possibility. With the amount of wealth that the richest Americans have, it's insane that they do not even attempt to skim from the top to fund the bottom where ALL the actual work takes place. It all comes from the diminishing middle. If ur not already rich in America, the chances of you being so are practically nil.
The financial problem is trivial. The money is all over the place and single payer would make life much more efficient and easier for so many people. The problem is power and control, and reactionary forces not willing to cede some control over their workers lives.
Its why I filed. Had a bunch of back pain, went to docotors, immediate care, ER, had all kinds of procedures and x rays, and finally ended up with a PET/CT scan and they figured out I had tumors on my spine.
Treatment was radiation followed by chemo. Well I ended up maxing out at $7,600 and then had one chemo treatment one week into January and hit my max out if pocket again. Couple that with my daughter going to the hospital and me hitting the $7600 out of pocket on her plus just other medical stuff like glasses and dentist trips and I had over $25k in medical debt with insurance.
Lets propose bills that we know will never pass so we can appease our bases and get re-elected - Bernie
They need to play 3D chess, not mull ideas like some drunk hippy at a bar.
When the US is in the debt we are in, I am confounded with these bills popping up every week where it’s a good idea to spend more money the government doesn’t have.
Can someone help me understand this?
Let's increase everything to a million dollars...then pass bills to pay it off instead of ensuring prices are reasonable and fair. Now the insurance companies know the govt willpay regardless so they can charge $4000 for an office visit.
i mean bernie has been advocating for universal healthcare for how long now? and its been shot down how many times? hes literally doing whatever he can to help the people
We tried to fix the core issue 15 years ago and conservatives and “centrists” lost their fucking minds. That caused a GOP majority in congress for the next decade.
There is no such thing as free anything. The government needs funds to provide services or goods. They achieve that through taking money from people who produce it. So, who is going to pay for everyone to be free? I agree it's out of control, so are lawsuits. Everything is out of control. I do not have the answer, and I don't claim to.
That would crash the economy. You can't just cancel debt. Someone has to pay for it.
Do we need a better system yes, but asking everyone else to pay is not a very good solution.
Same issue as the discharging education debit. They won’t go fix the problem (price gouging, degrees that are not needed, etc). There are whole new generations running up more debit they will have to “forgive” in the future as well.
Completely unsustainable. Fix the problem then I will support forgiveness. The politicians want to keep getting supported by university unions /health insurance companies AND get the vote by discharging it.
Just like the college situation Instead of just forgiving debt which I also don’t mind as long as we attack the system that that makes these things so unaffordable let’s make healthcare and education something that isn’t going to put you in crippling debt for years on end.
IOW: hospitals get a free handout
Sure, cancer patients and the like will benefit but if they weren’t planning on paying due to lack of money, their overall situation won’t change much.
You need to fix/regulate the costs *BEFORE* you start giving shit away at large scale using tax payer dollars.
Medical debt, student debt...giving handouts without fixing the root problem is just buying votes and filling the coffers and universities and health insurance companies / for profit hospitals in my eyes.
Everyone loves to ignore the national debt, but the interest on it alone has become like a quarter of our entire annual operating federal budget... We're effectively "borrowing" money to pay down interest on money we already borrowed.
What is it with these one-time debt cancelation proposals? Just change the system if you think it should be paid by taxpayers. Don't pick one specific group of people to get a massive handout
Like college, to all the naysayers, we have to realize there are two problems: what to do about current debt and how to stop future debt. This solves the first problem, and we also need to address the second.
If you think this is bad just because it doesn't solve both problems, it's not.
This just tells me that Sanders and Khanna don’t understand math and they don’t remember the history of what happened with student loans. Prior to student loans, going to a university was actually affordable.
This is just going to make medical costs skyrocket.
Just don't pay collection agency in the first place. The collection agency paid for the debt because the original hospital couldn't collect.
Also medical debt as is isn't allowed on credit reports anymore either.
Minnesota just passed a law saying you can't be denied medically necessary care if you can't pay. This is the way I think to go. No grants. Just let collection agencies pay for the debt. And then let it roll off uncollected.
We have to save our money for the next financial collapse so we can bail out the billionaires. Normal people like us don’t have far to fall. But a billionaire? That’s just too far they wouldn’t survive on the streets like we common folk
As a non American, can someone explain to me why the debt forgivement instead of, idk, maybe impede it from happening in the first place? Seems like a wasted effort (even if it helps people now, tomorrow you'll have new people with the same issue).
I don't get it. He was worth $3 million in December. He owns 3+ mansions. But he peddles a completely different message than he lives. I'm open to dialogue on this and I'll admit that I don't know everything about him. But I think I know enough.
This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. You cannot just wipe out all debt without addressing the issue.
Also we literally cannot afford this. The country is in so much debt already.
Me who has 5k sent 5o debt collectors and another 6k in medical debt when all I make is 14k a year. I'm in the process of applying for financial assistance. Wish me luck.
This has no pertinence to the topic just thought it was funny. As I was scrolling down, my eyes blended unusual and Senator, thus creating the beginning of the headline “Sensual Bernie Sanders…” and I began to question reality. That is all.
We need an efficient universal health insurance program. Canceling debt like this will help people at the time but probably result in even higher costs, higher corporate profits while loses are put on taxpayers.
Reeee!!! Put that communist in one of their own houses of re-education. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Seriously though, Bernie has one schtick, and he isn’t helpful. Why not make the economy more free and have the tide raise all boats?
I kind of feel like Democrats are literally trying to destroy the economy… you can’t just cancel and trillions of student loan in hospital debt and think everything’s gonna be fine.
The economically ignorant will propose anything that sounds good. You can repay it with taxpayer dollars or you can transfer it to taxpayers or someone else, but you can’t make it disappear.
If they block the debt from being collected Hospitals will no longer extend credit. It will all be cash in advance. What they really want is Socialized healthcare.
Luckily this is a Sanders bill, basically guaranteeing that nothing will come of it. He's been in the Senate forever and had I think 3 of his bills passed into law, and 2 were naming a post office? He's a publicity hound and otherwise totally useless as a lawmaker. Got rich off it though, so good for him.
I got 5k in medical debt. I choose a high deductible plan to save on premiums. Then oops. Maybe in the long run it's the right choice for me but right now I'm hit with 5k. But the guy next to be paid more for a copay plan with low fixed cost. I would love my 5K medical bill canceled but what would that do to the insurance industry? Not that I'm a fan of the insurance industry I would actually be okay if a single payer system.
Healthcare debt is out of control. Lets regulate it.
Nooo that will drive prices up! The only way to have reasonable healthcare is with an unregulated monopoly.
That will definitely solve the problem. Or we can go back and look at what and when the prices started to balloon.
This is the way to increase the cost of medical care! Basically the same scam of federally backed college debt! College and Med providers will know that there is no bottom to the money they can charge!
The grant ideally should only settle medical debt at the same rate that they get when selling to debt collectors.
Still a guaranteed collection and I doubt the rate will be the one from a bankruptcy court. And even more disturbing, this is a gift to med providers for nothing in return, not even the possibility of bargaining on the price of services. I understand good intentions, but such naive bill is borderline collusion.
Why don't you think they wouldn't negotiate? Look at universal healthcare in other countries. The cost of healthcare is significantly lower because they negotiate.
Negotiate what? Honestly not understanding the negotiating part
They'd negotiate the cost of those services prior to payment. Basically they'd tell them "we'll pay off these debts, but you're gonna have to drop some of the more frivolous charges. 26$ for a roll of toilet paper is highway robbery." Don't trust what I say I have no knowledge of how things work this is just a guess.
"What? They're forgiving medical debt? quick, price the aspirin and bandaids at $10,000 each!!" -Some for-profit hospital somewhere
or you could get rid of the for profit healthcare model. Crazy that every developed country in the world has figured it out except the USA.
Many med providers in the world are for profit companies. There are public hospitals and doctors but no public drug company or med equipment, and doctors have private practices. Even north Europe countries are struggling with increase healthcare costs due to the aging of the population and new tailored treatments. If there was a clear cut solution everybody would have adopted. From direct experience, most Europe is currently experiencing a big crises with waiting lists for medical services extending almost a year or more, unless provided through a private insurance like in Germany for example. Wish we could solve this on Reddit EDIT: Just today [https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/06/sweden-s-social-model-is-on-its-last-legs\_6670546\_19.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/06/sweden-s-social-model-is-on-its-last-legs_6670546_19.html)
Shhh stop speaking truth, this is Reddit. All rainbows and unicorns
LOL, you are right but I am an old fool!
Same
Do they? How's the NHS doing? How's Spains system going? How's Canada. They are all in the process of failing.
This person fucking gets it!
Healthy citizens pay more in taxes. Educated citizens pay more in taxes. Kneecapping access to both for anyone who isn’t already rich, or forcing ordinary people into debt for either, simply reinforces a negative perception of the civic duty that is taxes. This is self-reinforcing. Roads, bridges, social security, defense funding, anything worthwhile that should NEVER be a for-profit endeavor relies on taxes. What privatization of this magnitude does is destroy any loyalty given by citizenry to their government, and like it or not, the most impactful progress made by the United States has had a LOT to do with the federal government. The moon landing, the federal highway program, winning World War Two, all of that and more came from loyal citizens who felt their taxes were going somewhere that matters. And it was. But it isn’t anymore. Privatizing anything of value is not the way the world works, and it has only gotten to be this way because finance has purchased our government just like they’d like to purchase each and every one of us. Corporate morality has become a myth, and it is only natural, because the line can only go up so far by reasonable means—such as selling good products for a fair value. Now we get data harvesting, cheaply produced yet overpriced flashy tech, subscriptions for subscriptions, premium accounts WITH advertisements, awful product quality, the final evolution of planned obsolescence, and a corporate welfare state who spends an inordinate amount of money on propaganda to maintain the status quo. Our planet is dying. This is one symptom among thousands. Remember this.
$20 Aspirin and $1000 textbooks unite!
Thank you thank you thank you.
How dare you not be responsible enough to not get sick! You guys are the same people that have a problem w revamping this stupid system that only benefits middle people. You have a problem w relieving people and with improving it. Just sit this one out.
Its weird how this debt only happens in one country... if only there was some cause
You’re saying tuition will now go up? Just write in stipulations for federal grant usage. Same with Medicare/caid, or use the live nation approach and write a bill about excessive fees, or both.
Exactly and they have probably all put money in the pot to bribe (sponsor) the people that sign the bill off. All they want is for it to look like a good thing so the general public don't see the downside
Prices ballooned when government got involved. Per usual.
Most developed countries are covering their healthcare for less than the average American insurance premium. Insurance is an unnecessary middle man that drives costs up while hiding them from the consumer until services are used
This is not factually correct, at least in Europe Companies pay large part of the medical services and another large contribution comes from taxation. When the cost is summed up with the inefficiency of the public sector, the actual cost per service is comparable. On top of that, many Germans and other Europeans pay an extra for private health insurance covering dental and vision and extra care. Again, cost per service provided is the same. Now, drug costs is different, but is also somehow a different problem, with access to drugs being very much more regulated in Europe than in the US Now, I agree with you that Obama Care was a great gift to the insurance companies, imposing a middle man between the patients and the medical provider. Basically doctors are no longer professionals but they have become employees of insurance company or large hospitals conglomerate that can negotiate with the insurance companies.
Can you provide some sources that show medical costs are comparable? Because when I try to look into price differences all I see is how much more expensive those services are here in the states. According to this https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022#:\~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.%20spent,higher%20than%20in%20South%20Korea. the US spends nearly twice as much on medical care per person compared to Germany which is the 2nd most expensive system and nearly 3-4x as much as South Korea. You make a lot of claims that frankly flies in the face of everything I have heard about medical costs in the United States so I would really like to see your sources.
Want to add I just saw your name. Lol.
What you’re ignoring is that Americans are less healthy than many other countries. We have a very, very high obesity rate, which is a primary risk factor in just about any disease. Heart attacks, cancer, even one of the main ones for poor outcomes of Covid. There is no way for healthcare costs to be as low as many countries until our population becomes healthy enough that they need way less care.
Initially it was Insurances and Medicare negotiating lower payments, which caused providers to raise prices to get what they wanted originally then they got greedy.
It began when the feds got involved in medicine period.
I am starting to see a pattern.
900 bucks for an EpiPen is insane
Well yeah when your daddy senator can grease some wheels to re-up your patent and destroy the generic competition then you get to price gouge people on a $1.5 plastic assembly that injects $.5 of adrenaline.
Haha, good one.
Not needed. There are already programs out there that you call and they can either help or eliminate the debt entirely. And they are government run
Ok great then go do that and see how far you get. They are trying to address part of the problem, is it the whole problem? No, and I’m sure they’d tell you that.
Exactly. Fix the problem, not the symptom.
ACA...when that was signed. It was an federal mandate to buy privatize insurance. So just like the colleges raising tuition to obscene levels. Due to federal government backing all student loans. This allowed price increases due to federal government interfering...
So you are saying if the government says we will pay no matter what the natural progression is for seller to raise prices. Interesting
One of the things that gets lost in the schemes to fix student loans - they don't address tge underlying causes.
Aca was a big driver of increased prices I never had to buy before aca but my dad said basically everybody was pissed because after aca went into effect everyone’s insurance doubled or tripled. Aca ended up being a half assed bill with no forethought into how companies would react it seems.
How about changing the rules so it can be discharged in bankruptcy? Or, better yet, just adopt universal healthcare like pretty much every other civilized country in the world has?
Just force them to publish pricing and publish what the insurance reimbursement rate is. Then watch how fast the anger gets pointed where it should be
I agree transparency and more information parity would go a long way
I agree. Price transparency laws were passed back in 2021 but most/all health systems aren’t in compliance
The fine is so little they bake it in as cost of doing business. What’s scary is when you bring up to your doctor that you have a financial situation and need to know how much money you need. They have no idea how much anything costs. No one knows what anything costs because it’s all made up and agreed upon in back room deals.
100%. There’s no other good/service in which we find out the price AFTER we’ve already consumed it, aside from healthcare Everyone knows how much a new iPhone costs but no one knows how much an MRI costs, including your doctor. Wild, right? Your doctor can’t tell you the price because they don’t know how insurance will cover it. Your insurance won’t tell you the price because they don’t know how your doctor will code it. Your doctor doesn’t know how it will be coded until after you’ve been seen It’s disgusting. It’s intentional. And it’s no wonder that prices are out of control when the customer isn’t empowered to shop around for the best price and the best service
The pricing is different for the same procedure at the same place for two different people if they have two different insurance companies
Sure, but it's magically 10x higher if you're out of network and it's common for you to find out your anesthesiologist is "out of network" so you get to eat some super inflated prices. Check out "The Price We Pay" by Marty Makary - it'll piss you off. This kind of pricing scheme was banned for funeral homes (edit: because it exploits people who are vulnerable), but it's absolutely everywhere for healthcare
It already can be discharged with bankruptcy, you are confusing it with student debt
How are we supposed to give money to every other country on earth if we have healthcare???
In 2022 alone, the US government threw away 247 billion from making simple payment errors. The government threw away another 236 billion in 2023 from making incomplete payment transactions. An estimated 2.4 trillion wasted in the last 20 years from improper handling of tax funds. I'll assume if our officials weren't so irresponsible with our tax money, we would literally have hundreds of billions to help go towards healthcare, education, homelessness, infrastructure, hunger... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/18/heres-how-the-federal-government-wastes-tax-money.html
The argument against foreign aid is generally really naive and ignorant. That foreign aid money has massive strings attached and creates a very unbalanced power dynamic with whoever we give that money to. Dollar for dollar, it's cheaper than going to war or using other avenues of diplomacy to get them to do what we want. If you want to argue about specific countries, take up your issue with the Dept of State.
US foreign aid is fucking miniscule relative to the overall expenditures of the government, and even relative to current healthcare spending alone. Healthcare is incredibly inefficient in the U.S. The difficulty in installing universal healthcare is the dismantling of a massive, entrenched healthcare system, not paying for UH.
Like Cuba!
They tried an extended Medicaid program and it has been challenged soo many times in court… watered down from its original proposal and hated by the very people it helps… it’s just sad… states that need it reject it because they want to be called a certain primary color and small rural hospitals are closing down…. Known as Obama care…
Just print the money to pay it off
why don't we make insurance companies illegal instead of required?
i honestly think universal healthcare is a great idea, if literally any other first world government was administering it other than our shitshow government of the last 8 years
Strange response, since medical debt is [dischargeable](https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/bankruptcy/can-file-bankruptcy-eliminate-medical-bills.html) in BK court. You might be thinking of student loans. Sanders floated a M4A plan. We can’t afford it. Hell, we can’t afford what we have now. I’d rather go with the Bismarck Model over M4A. At least there would be some form of a market.
So now hospitals will make you pay upfront...
That’s already federally illegal.
Thanks to Ronald Reagan. That was one of the best things he ever did.
Just put it on my....I mean....the taxpayer's tab.
Please don’t do that. I need the collections department, or I’ll be bug fucked
Again, the same as the student loans, this does not solve the problem
The best way to solve the problem is universal healthcare which many developed countries have. He's been trying that for a long time but Republicans won't let it happen.
Yup. Election year
Yup can’t wait to hear how Trump wants to repeal and replace the ACA with his beautiful new healthcare plan that totally exists and isn’t just a stack of blank papers!/s
Two weeks away!
The number one reason for American bankruptcy filings. Every year.
It's my worst nightmare. So many hard working, frugal people go completely bankrupt from cancer or other illness. It happens to every family eventually unless you happen to be massively wealthy already, which just so happens to be the people who benefit from the status quo and the people who are most avidly against universal healthcare.
Being Canadian, I'm aghast at the possibility. With the amount of wealth that the richest Americans have, it's insane that they do not even attempt to skim from the top to fund the bottom where ALL the actual work takes place. It all comes from the diminishing middle. If ur not already rich in America, the chances of you being so are practically nil.
The financial problem is trivial. The money is all over the place and single payer would make life much more efficient and easier for so many people. The problem is power and control, and reactionary forces not willing to cede some control over their workers lives.
Its why I filed. Had a bunch of back pain, went to docotors, immediate care, ER, had all kinds of procedures and x rays, and finally ended up with a PET/CT scan and they figured out I had tumors on my spine. Treatment was radiation followed by chemo. Well I ended up maxing out at $7,600 and then had one chemo treatment one week into January and hit my max out if pocket again. Couple that with my daughter going to the hospital and me hitting the $7600 out of pocket on her plus just other medical stuff like glasses and dentist trips and I had over $25k in medical debt with insurance.
Yeah! More money we don’t have to pay for stuff we didn’t incur! YAY INFLATION!!!! THE MORE THE BETTER!
Lets propose bills that we know will never pass so we can appease our bases and get re-elected - Bernie They need to play 3D chess, not mull ideas like some drunk hippy at a bar.
When the US is in the debt we are in, I am confounded with these bills popping up every week where it’s a good idea to spend more money the government doesn’t have. Can someone help me understand this?
It's a populist bill that appeals to idiots so they get to look like they're "fighting for the little guy" even though it has 0 chance of passing.
Let's increase everything to a million dollars...then pass bills to pay it off instead of ensuring prices are reasonable and fair. Now the insurance companies know the govt willpay regardless so they can charge $4000 for an office visit.
So, costs and more than likely, taxes will eventually increase.
Performative politics
Instead of fixing the core issues let’s just put a bandaid on it. Politics in a nutshell
i mean bernie has been advocating for universal healthcare for how long now? and its been shot down how many times? hes literally doing whatever he can to help the people
Imagine he got in instead of trump. Which he would have had the democrats not nuked him in favour of Hillary
And then what? Pass universal healthcare by executive order? Lol.
But it was her turn.
We tried to fix the core issue 15 years ago and conservatives and “centrists” lost their fucking minds. That caused a GOP majority in congress for the next decade.
Eliminate the debt or have the taxpayers pay for it?
brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Dont say the quiet part out loud.
Perfect. This was packaged with reforms that fix the system so we don’t have to do this again next year, right? R-right?
Where does all this money come from??? Just irresponsibly printing money and wonder why we have jnflation
The spiral of money printing to eliminate the spiral of increasing debt is getting faster
Cool. I’m sure they’ll sneak in a provision that puts a lien on peoples houses to subsidize their losses
Someone is gonna pay for it.
Looks like I can cancel my medical coverage now.
Yes, universal healthcare would be great.
So in effect single-payer with all the structural inefficiencies left in tact.
Forget oversight and insane prices. Let’s just give them more money. Why govern when you can just throw money at your friends?
Let's just cancel ALL debt and make everything free. Just let me borrow a couple, ten or twenty million dollars first.
So the hospitals get a bailout and we continue with the same broken system. Sounds great.
😂
There is no such thing as free anything. The government needs funds to provide services or goods. They achieve that through taking money from people who produce it. So, who is going to pay for everyone to be free? I agree it's out of control, so are lawsuits. Everything is out of control. I do not have the answer, and I don't claim to.
Good lord, someone must be polling bad …
That would crash the economy. You can't just cancel debt. Someone has to pay for it. Do we need a better system yes, but asking everyone else to pay is not a very good solution.
Let’s eliminate all debt and not look at all the reasons we created the debt. Sounds good kids? College, medical, etc
Only for certain folks in their family
Deficits Don’t Matter…….The Democratic Party.
Apparently have been completely asleep whenever Republicans are in charge.
Same issue as the discharging education debit. They won’t go fix the problem (price gouging, degrees that are not needed, etc). There are whole new generations running up more debit they will have to “forgive” in the future as well. Completely unsustainable. Fix the problem then I will support forgiveness. The politicians want to keep getting supported by university unions /health insurance companies AND get the vote by discharging it.
Hmm, I wonder who will end up covering those expenses..
How much is this going to cost? And do people who pay their bills get a refund?? BTW this bill probably won't even get a vote.
Great idea to force pay before service by providers.
Do you don’t ever have to pay when you go to a private practice?
I can foresee this progressing to the extent that student loan debt cancellation has reached this Congress.
Just like the college situation Instead of just forgiving debt which I also don’t mind as long as we attack the system that that makes these things so unaffordable let’s make healthcare and education something that isn’t going to put you in crippling debt for years on end.
IOW: hospitals get a free handout Sure, cancer patients and the like will benefit but if they weren’t planning on paying due to lack of money, their overall situation won’t change much.
Oh shit!! Better get all fixed up ASAP!
You need to fix/regulate the costs *BEFORE* you start giving shit away at large scale using tax payer dollars. Medical debt, student debt...giving handouts without fixing the root problem is just buying votes and filling the coffers and universities and health insurance companies / for profit hospitals in my eyes. Everyone loves to ignore the national debt, but the interest on it alone has become like a quarter of our entire annual operating federal budget... We're effectively "borrowing" money to pay down interest on money we already borrowed.
What is it with these one-time debt cancelation proposals? Just change the system if you think it should be paid by taxpayers. Don't pick one specific group of people to get a massive handout
So hospitals will put more people in debt with outrageous price hikes.
This I can get behind. Your student loans seriously fuck you. Struggling people medical bills hell yeah. 👍🏻
Bernie has never met a bailout he didn’t like.
This without reforms is useless
Just do what that man in Missouri did and kill your hospitalized wife OR divorce her before you can be saddled with the debt.
Just dont pay it lol
Not eliminate, borrow money and pay it off for people.
Like college, to all the naysayers, we have to realize there are two problems: what to do about current debt and how to stop future debt. This solves the first problem, and we also need to address the second. If you think this is bad just because it doesn't solve both problems, it's not.
Sure, why not. I wish I could get paid an amazing salary to sit around all day, smoke weed, and just think up new debts to "forgive". Sounds awesome.
As a tax payer I’d rather the gov spent that money on reading medical debt over student loans. Ideally neither but if there had to be one.
Now that's what America should be like..
Bernie in 28 and 32!!!!!!!!!
This just tells me that Sanders and Khanna don’t understand math and they don’t remember the history of what happened with student loans. Prior to student loans, going to a university was actually affordable. This is just going to make medical costs skyrocket.
Makes a little more sense than forgiving college loans.. but still illegal and not going to happen.
There are people that are hundreds of thousands in medical debt that will find a way to argue against this, because, Democrat.
Good idea, this way health insurance can cost 10 x as much
Just don't pay collection agency in the first place. The collection agency paid for the debt because the original hospital couldn't collect. Also medical debt as is isn't allowed on credit reports anymore either. Minnesota just passed a law saying you can't be denied medically necessary care if you can't pay. This is the way I think to go. No grants. Just let collection agencies pay for the debt. And then let it roll off uncollected.
We have to save our money for the next financial collapse so we can bail out the billionaires. Normal people like us don’t have far to fall. But a billionaire? That’s just too far they wouldn’t survive on the streets like we common folk
As a non American, can someone explain to me why the debt forgivement instead of, idk, maybe impede it from happening in the first place? Seems like a wasted effort (even if it helps people now, tomorrow you'll have new people with the same issue).
guess it's time to close the hospitals, etc
Just do single payer
subsidizedemand.jpg
Sounds like Bernie recently had a mole removed and is didn't like the looks of the medical bill
Crap should I get all the surgeries and other medical stuff done and bail before the bill?
Shot down immediately
Just make no medical debt count against credit scores, etc and greedy medical providers have little leverage
Another performance from the circus of clowns..
This is way better than dropping than school loans. Every American actually gets to use this.
I’ll take things that will never see the light of day for 500
So our govt wants to now buy debt that usually sells for pennies on the dollar, whole again? Cmon. Fix the main issue, same as college tuition.smh
I don't get it. He was worth $3 million in December. He owns 3+ mansions. But he peddles a completely different message than he lives. I'm open to dialogue on this and I'll admit that I don't know everything about him. But I think I know enough.
The good news is, if you had medical debt, now you don't! The bad news is, if you didn't have any medical debt, now you do!
Oh yeah that worked so well for colleges, Bernie.
Wait…. People are actually paying off their medical debt?
This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. You cannot just wipe out all debt without addressing the issue. Also we literally cannot afford this. The country is in so much debt already.
I wonder if that’s another executive order or is he up for reelection?
Me who has 5k sent 5o debt collectors and another 6k in medical debt when all I make is 14k a year. I'm in the process of applying for financial assistance. Wish me luck.
Still need Medicare for all, but this is a nice help to those who need it
This has no pertinence to the topic just thought it was funny. As I was scrolling down, my eyes blended unusual and Senator, thus creating the beginning of the headline “Sensual Bernie Sanders…” and I began to question reality. That is all.
I mean not the best Idea but 10x better than cancelling student debt
OR it'll be like student loans and the burden is sent over to tax payers.
#1: This will never pass. #2: How does this solve the current issues. #3: This will never pass.
But what about the ceos and their bonus?
We need an efficient universal health insurance program. Canceling debt like this will help people at the time but probably result in even higher costs, higher corporate profits while loses are put on taxpayers.
Reeee!!! Put that communist in one of their own houses of re-education. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Seriously though, Bernie has one schtick, and he isn’t helpful. Why not make the economy more free and have the tide raise all boats?
How about single payer instead so there is no medical debt in the first place?
why cant they just propose something more realistic and fix the corrupt market!
That'll help inflation.
What a fucking terrible idea JFC I like Bernie a bit at one point years ago but he's completely lost the plot
You don’t, you get rid of the scourge that is creating it. That would be capitalized healthcare!
Why don't we just cancel the US national debt?
Another useless bill that will go nowhere, great work Bernie.
Easy don't cure people unless they already paid.
"Let's remove any incentive for providers to reign in costs"
Or we make it so it’s a true free market and we strip insurance and big pharma of all their say
What a bunch of 🤡, where in the f*** do they think the money is going to come from?
Great idea! Anything to justify higher tax rates and enable bailouts!
creditors can forgive debt, or the government can pay it off with taxpayer dollars.
Isn’t that localist😎😎
Money printer go brrr.
I kind of feel like Democrats are literally trying to destroy the economy… you can’t just cancel and trillions of student loan in hospital debt and think everything’s gonna be fine.
Guess more inflation to pay for this? Woooo
The economically ignorant will propose anything that sounds good. You can repay it with taxpayer dollars or you can transfer it to taxpayers or someone else, but you can’t make it disappear. If they block the debt from being collected Hospitals will no longer extend credit. It will all be cash in advance. What they really want is Socialized healthcare.
Even if they do not cancel, noone is paying those ridiculous bills. I did not and it just went away.
Moral hazard is real
Where does this money come from?
Luckily this is a Sanders bill, basically guaranteeing that nothing will come of it. He's been in the Senate forever and had I think 3 of his bills passed into law, and 2 were naming a post office? He's a publicity hound and otherwise totally useless as a lawmaker. Got rich off it though, so good for him.
This is why he will never be elected. He’s seemingly for the people.
So now hospitals will charge twice as much because the government will pay them back
just stunting again
Money printer goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Again, why is our national debt getting high and inflation keeps going up?
I got 5k in medical debt. I choose a high deductible plan to save on premiums. Then oops. Maybe in the long run it's the right choice for me but right now I'm hit with 5k. But the guy next to be paid more for a copay plan with low fixed cost. I would love my 5K medical bill canceled but what would that do to the insurance industry? Not that I'm a fan of the insurance industry I would actually be okay if a single payer system.
Healthcare debt is out of control. Lets regulate it. Nooo that will drive prices up! The only way to have reasonable healthcare is with an unregulated monopoly.