I stumbled across an NBC News report on medical debt that is remarkable in what it leaves out. Follow this link for the report.
The story mentions that Americans are saddled with $220 billion in medical debt and that it’s the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America. Fourteen million Americans carry at least $1000 in medical debt. The story focuses on one man who had to put a lien on his house due to medical bills associated with the death of his wife from breast cancer. He now owes an additional $6000 due to his own struggle with prostate cancer. And this man had private health insurance.
The story cites how the Biden administration is working to remove medical debt from credit reports so that more people can qualify for loans, but note that nothing is being done to reduce or discharge the debt itself. Is it sensible for someone struggling with medical debt to encourage them to apply for a home mortgage or a car loan, which would drive them even deeper into debt?
Anyhow, it won’t surprise you to learn what NBC fails to mention in its report. Debt forgiveness goes unmentioned. A public option for health insurance goes unmentioned. Most of all, a single-payer health care option like Medicare for All goes unmentioned. And of course there’s no mention that medical debt doesn’t plague people in France, or Germany, or New Zealand, or Japan since those countries have national health care plans funded by taxpayers and run fairly well by the governments of those countries.
NBC reports the problem of medical debt without offering any solution. This isn’t surprising, since some of NBC’s biggest advertisers are private health insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
What will President Kamala Harris do? Probably nothing. She’s already professed her faith in private health insurers. What will President Donald Trump do? Who knows what, since the MAGA Republicans seem determined to overthrow the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, without having a viable plan of their own.
This story may be apocryphal, but I remember reading that when Trump was trying to repeal Obamacare, he turned to his advisers and allegedly asked whether he could simply replace it with Medicare for All. His advisers, aghast, said no, of course not, and Trump dropped the idea. The story could be true, because I don’t think Trump cares about health care. He just wanted to repeal Obamacare and otherwise make the problem go away.
Meanwhile, Americans struggle with medical debt even as personal credit card debt sits at roughly $1.14 trillion, serviced by interest rates that average roughly 23%. I saw recently that the biggest money maker for airlines is not their flights but their credit cards. They get you hooked by offering “rewards” and “bonus miles” for every dollar that you spend on their cards, knowing that most people don’t pay their credit card balances in full each month. 23% (and higher) interest rates is a money-making machine for credit card companies and banks, and apparently for the airlines too.
Perhaps it’s worth a reminder that before he became president, Joe Biden, the Senator from Delaware, was better known as the senator for the credit card and banking industry. Delaware, as this GQ article shows, is well known as a corporate tax haven. Say it ain’t so, Joe!
A colleague had this as a bumper sticker, circa 2005: "Our national health care plan: don't get sick"
Nothing has changed in 20 years.
There is plenty of money to build lavish (for profit) facilities and to pay their doctors and administrators seven-figure salaries. Yet the elephant in the room is chronic disease which makes this whole thing a house of cards. Even with Medicare for All, which I fully endorse, it cannot be self sustaining until we stop the pill for every problem (and potential problem) that treats rather than prevents. How unsurprised I am that Biden's solution is to be sure the broke can go deeper in debt. Geniuses abound.