Health policy
Every week I’ve been adding a short trivia section to the THCB Reader, our weekly newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB that week (Sign up here!). Then I had the idea to add them to the blog. They are short and generally not too sweet! –Matthew holt
In this week’s health care news, we are talking about medical debt. Oh, not all medical debts. No, not that debt that is garnished with the salaries of healthcare workers. by their own employers. Today we are only discussing the debt that has already gone to collections. Yes, debt sold by doctors and hospitals for pennies on the dollar so debt collectors can harass people until they pay up or despair.
This week a The Harvard / Stanford team reported that the total in collections is $ 140 billion. Much more than anyone thought, almost ONE in SIX Americans currently have a medical bill in collection. There are no prizes for guessing that those most likely to be persecuted live in the poorest zip codes in the country and are more likely to be in a southern state that never expanded Medicaid.
I am glad that we are all proud to be Americans.
Thanks To You
