Make Medical Debt a Thing of the Past

Free Healthcare News and Actions June ,9 2023

Jun 09, 2023

Happy Friday Healthcare Advocates

Remember our advocacy educates our representatives and lets them know what we want them to do for us.

Please enter requests for research using the comment button at the bottom. Some of you have asked for more doctor payment specifics with respect to HR 3421 and those details are being researched. Prison and Rural healthcare are also being investigated.

Medical Debt

The Kaiser Family Foundation report “Diagnosis: Debt,” discovered that more than 100 million of Americans, 41% of adults, are stuck with medical bills they cannot pay. This was a well done study because they included other debt that was incurred to manage medical costs, like credit cards (some of the worst places to carry debt).

GOFUNDME takes in about $650 million a year in medical requests from individuals to cover their debt.

Paying medical bills that are out of control is just horrendous. Keep in mind that this problem goes away with Universal Healthcare.

ACTION 1

If you have a few dollars burning a hole in your purse or pocket, think about RIP Medical Debt. This is a nonprofit that buys up medical debt in collection for about ten cents on the dollar and retires it. The best would be universal healthcare that doesn’t let the debt begin, but we also have to focus on what is in front of us.

Good News (Sort of)

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 7-2 to protect the right of Medicaid nursing home residents to seek relief in federal court when state officials do not meet a certain quality of care — a ruling policy watchers are hailing as a civil rights victory for Medicaid patients.

Without this ruling, patients had no recourse when the state chooses a lower level of care for Medicaid patients than is medically appropriate. It is good that rights were restored. It is devastating that medical treatment and reimbursement would have to go to federal court (taking who knows how long) to be approved.

How about Universal Healthcare and get it over with. It can fix this and medical debt.

ACTION 2

Use RESISTBOT (text SIGN PNMUZA to 50409) or call or email your congressional representative and senators (their contact info is in the References Section) and tell them something like:

“My name is [name] and I live in [zipcode] and I am your constituent. 100 million Americans have medical debt they cannot pay and about 62% of all bankruptcies are related to that medical debt. I want you to cosponsor either HR 3421 or S 1655 Improved Medicare for All and end this healthcare nightmare. You can do this and I am counting on you.”