Another more than $200 million in medical debt has been wiped out for Arizonans. And the recipients are going to know who to thank: Gov. Katie Hobbs.
The new figure was announced Monday by Allison Sasso. She’s the president and CEO of Undue Medical Debt, a company that agreed earlier this year to use some $10 million in state American Rescue Plan COVID relief dollars to buy up medical debt from hospitals and doctors for a few pennies on the dollar, eliminating a negative mark on the credit reports of those who racked up the bills.
All totaled, according to the governor’s office, the program has so far erased $642 million owed by more than 485,000 Arizonans.
Get ready for the DOJ to drop a lawsuit.
The beautiful thing about this kind of policy is: it’s almost impossible to get the public against it once it happens. Even with the near total control of MAGA on the minds of its base, getting people to openly harm themselves – specifically in the face of counterevidence, not without it – is a hard sell.
And yes, it’s not a complete fix. But don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. We have done that far too long.
Symptom treatment. Here in europe medical dept is unknown.
The phrase that will piss me off more than anything. Someone (likely a poor/homeless person} needs immediate medical intervention.
“But who will pay for it?!” How about those taxes I’m paying that the corporations aren’t?
It’s the leading cause of bankruptcy stateside
The symptoms are so bad now we need to stabilize before we can tackle the cause.
cause we have continuous symptom treatment?
pick a political side not a continental one my fren
“continuous symptom treatment” is called “healthcare.”
when capitalism is worldwide and has purchased politics, it is a political thing. not a continental one. :)
health care in europe isn’t planned economy. as i interpret it it’s market with it’s symptoms fought on the “front-end”.
what they did over there is a political stunt in that same direction
when people have healthcare they can afford, as a community even, it’s not a stunt. reminder that if it’s required for life, health, safety, education, and housing - it should NOT be allowed to profit, be owned by the workers, and until that transition happens, the current owners should be reminded they are pieces of shit. :)
of course they should have that. of course we need to abolish capitalism if we want a human humanity. needs of the people not profit of a few.
to get there we do political stunts (leftover covid funds for medical debt), we take parts of the social reality away from the market or at least undo market-consequences (public health care) and we build narratives (like you just did, like I just did).
I guess my point is on this platform too often people don’t differ between those strategies and between strategy and analysis. And if we don’t get better at that, we won’t succeed :)
Isn’t that debt still paid back to the private insurance companies?
Better people’s debt is erased, but even better if the debt is absorbed by the insurance companies which is the point of having insurance in the first place.
Yes but only at a fraction of what these companies act like it should be. When a company is telling you it costs $100 but then magically will take $1 for the same services…some shit is going on with the system.
Medicine company sets the highest price the government is prepared to subsidize on behalf of Americans who can’t pay. But for some corrupt reason, the government sucks at negotiating.
I think as long as nobody points out to people that technically this is socialism, it should go great. The picture the Internet has painted for me about Americans is that they’ll shout this down if they find out.
35ish percent still support trump. that’s the segment you’ll see come out against ‘socialism’ - the rest of us just want system that work and aren’t hung up on silly exceptions. and that 35ish percent will find ANYTHING to piss and moan about, so don’t bother trying to bring them along, leave them to their fates.
I’m happy for Arizona to get this, I hope the plan continues for more people in the state.
Now if only states followed suit.
And other debts like predatory loans.
Now this is actually fantastic news. Congratulations, and maybe this even helps some people who might read this!
This is downright fucking amazing! Though… I’m surprised the Communicialists aren’t whining about this being not enough considering she’s a Filthy Lib™
