re: Medical Debt Should Not Ever Be Used to Harm Credit Worthiness

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Health care providers and their collection agencies are able to report medical debts to CRAs without violating HIPAA regulations.

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They are, but it's much harder (and less common) and a lot of them will stop reporting if people even mention HIPAA.

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Getting sick or injured is not a decision made by the sick or injured.

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Not always true. Many actions help lead toward being injured (risky activities) or sick. Regarding being sick, some people choose to eat unhealthy, take drugs, over indulge in alcohol, smoke, not exercise, etc. Those are choices that other consumers should not have to support through increased health insurance costs or increased taxes.

Now, regarding credit worthiness. Shouldn't the fact that someone owes money they cannot pay back also affect other potential lenders decision regarding the consumers ability to pay them back (along with the other creditors)?

In pronciple, I agree with you; however, I also believe that potential creditors need full and accurate information in order to determine if a potential borrower will or can pay you back.

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My wife works for a doctor that had $250k of student debt cancelled

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Because the doctor was just that awesome? Or you leaving something out?

Like-he worked in a rural or underserved area for so many years.
Or the hospital/practice paid his debt because they wanted to hire him and he is in a niche specialty?
Or he was part of government service (like military).
Or he spent summers doing cleft palate repair for those that could not pay?

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anything serious is generally transported to a larger, better equipped hospital.

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Nope.

Anything serious in a situation in which the patient is stable enough to survive the trip gets transported to a larger hospital (and as you pointed out, at great expense).

If it took you 4 hours to get to the nearest hospital in the first place, you might be dead before you got there, or your situation might have deteriorated to the point that life-flighting you somewhere else would be impossible. And there are some patients who—even with a hospital right nearby—are still not candidates for a life-flight until they are stabilized at the local hospital first.

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Portage WI is around 10K people last I looked. And 30 miles from Madison which has several "big" hospitals including UW Hospital. Portage's is the hospital I was thinking of when posting that.

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O.k., then I would say the same thing to you that I would say to the populist mouth breathers on the board when they start talking about "Muh aid to Israel, muh aid to Ukraine," let's say that fountain cost $40,000. You take it out. Congratulations, you just saved enough money to pay 200 nurses (which is probably a tad more than that hospital you mentioned has, but it was easy math, so...) in the hospital for half of one shift. Oh, and that's not counting payroll taxes, that's just the going hourly rate.

I get that the money involved seems outrageous (both coming in and going out), but that's the point. That fountain is a non-factor. It's nothing but an emotional touch point.

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However it has simply gotten insane and there are a multitude of reasons why.

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There are lots of reasons why and it is complicated. But I'm telling you this as someone who has worked in health care for roughly 22 years...I am convinced of two things:

1. That the reason we do so many things that seem egregious and outrageous are designed to protect rural hospitals and continue to facilitate medical R&D. We can have a larger discussion about why I think that if anyone wants, but I am convinced of those two things. The fact that it has become more and more outrageous and egregious as time has progressed is, IMO, largely a function of the ACA and other government attempts to get involved in the system, and the fact that 3rd party pay (whether private payor or government payor) will always push the trend in that direction.

2. We could change health care in America, and we could do it drastically, but not without it costing us something. And I don't mean costing money when I say that. We could change it so that it costs the average American less money, I'm convinced of that. But nothing is free. The level of expertise of providers, medical R&D, progress moving forward, having facilities with the best and most up to date equipment, having care available when you need it, etc. You are going to have to give up SOMETHING. You can't make major changes without that happening.

And some of those changes don't just impact Americans, they impact the entire world. You do something like regulate drug companies' ability to protect drug patents for a period of time, yeah, the drugs would be a lot cheaper. But they would stop developing new ones. And nobody else would pick up the slack, because almost all other countries don't allow the patent protections in the first place (which is why the drugs are cheaper there). We are responsible for over 90% of the medical R&D in the world, and it's 100% because we allow medicine to be a for-profit industry.

Those other countries where you can get comparable care cheaper? They are drafting on our medical R&D. Literally what's happening is that American citizens are paying for them to be able to enjoy that level of care.

That's why Damone's parroted, "We're the richest country on Earth and blah, blah, blah," is nonsense. We are the richest country on Earth because we believe in for-profit systems, and Japan and Canada and Germany and every other country with "free" health care for it's citizens needs to get down on their knees and thank us for our for-profit system providing the incentive for medical progress to take place.

We are literally the reason they are able to do what they do with any kind of comparable outcomes.

"Not all healthcare is the same."

A long time ago when I was in residency, I went to a medical meeting where the speaker was talking about Levamasol, a drug that was being targeted to treat colon cancer. Ironically, it is also a worm treatment given to sheep to treat them for flukes I believe. The speaker gave some great information on the drug and its effectiveness thru the trials they had sponsored. When question time came, an old guy in the back stood up and said "Sir, I am a farmer and doctor from (some midwestern state). I use this drug to treat my sheep and and I have also used it during the trial on some of my patients. The question I have is about the price. The drug when I buy it at the Co-op is $1.50 a pill to treat my sheep, however the same dose to treat my patient is over $300 per pill, why is that...."
After a few moments, the speaker looked up and said "Sir, simply because we have never been sued by a sheep."
One reason we have such high costs for medications and for treatments is directly related to the unfair tort laws that allow people to sue for side effects and reactions. The companies build this in to the initial model for release because they anticipate a crazy number of suits.

No one paid back a dime of my school loans except for me. And medical school was expensive. I remember my first day at registration I was asked to write a check for more than I had made working during the previous two years. I didn't have it, but they said write it anyways and we will hold it until the loan paperwork is finalizsed. That was an eye-opener.

That was the point. A lot of the costs built into this is because of defensive medicine. When a provider is paying $50K a year for liability insurance they tend to either attempt to recoup their costs OR move to an area with more favorable tort laws.

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Doctors and nurses willingly murdered untold thousands with their Remdesivir and ventilator protocol. Patient after patient died and they just kept pressing on. Then they pushed the vaccine and told the unvaccinated they hoped we all died. So yeah, they're not owed a cent.

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Damn many here are deranged.

There is no such thing as cancelling a debt. Someone is getting screwed. Who is it? The doctor not getting paid? The insurance company that is owed? The person that paid for their medical?

You just wrote a long bumper sticker for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE...

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At this point this point I would be ok with Free health care for American citizens if it meant

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It will mean that you will need to comply with their treatments or risk future treatments being denied; i.e., you must take your COVID shots and all boosters

You will also need to work through the referral systems for damn near every procedure. No more calling directly to your specialists, all treatments must be scheduled with your PCP. Once you get through that waiting list, they make the referral, and you get to get on the specialists waiting list. And good luck if they need to refer it out.

Look into what Canada is doing with their elderly, you'll be signing on for that as well.

Look at what's going on in Europe when people have a terminal illness where treatment isn't available in their country, but it could be available somewhere else.