Republicans are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that health care is unaffordable for most Americans. Other than constantly calling our elected representatives, we may feel powerless to change the system. Clearly, we need universal health care; clearly, we as a nation could afford it. Anything else seems an unacceptable compromise.
Then again, here we are, and denying reality doesn’t solve the problem.
It was thus a pleasure to come across the organization “Undue Medical Debt” (https://unduemedicaldebt.org) which—hang on, this is rather incredible—buys and then forgives medical debt. People who are faced with piles of bills that they cannot pay are suddenly informed that their medical debt has vanished. Better yet, given our insane investment system that bundles and sells debt, the cost to the organization is only pennies on each dollar of debt. To date, Undue Medical Debt has erased billions of dollars of medical debt.
Undue Medical Debt recognizes that as powerful as this approach is, it makes no sense as a long-term strategy. They thus put forward various policy solutions, which are summarized on their website as:
1. Affordable, comprehensive, and easy-to-understand health coverage, so you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in health insurance to understand what your plan covers, so that you don’t spend a fortune on your insurance, and so that it actually covers you when you need it!;
2. Fair and simple medical billing practices to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and confusion. This would also reduce the problem of insurance denials and the need for prior authorization, and greatly reduce time (and thus expense) otherwise spent on billing and coding.
3. Ban extraordinary collection actions and monitor medical debt through data collection. This includes—I kid you not—preventing companies from “repossessing wheelchairs and prosthetics” when people can’t pay their debts. !!!
Honestly, I was a bit disappointed that in their policy solutions, Undue Medical Debt does not mention universal health care. Then again, I assume their policy solutions are meant to be pragmatic and easily (?!) accepted even in our insane policy environment (I speak of times before the current administration, which clearly couldn’t care less if people can access health care or not).
Can we bring about even the changes that Undue Medical Debt is pushing for? I certainly hope so, and in the meantime, it’s good to know about this organization that is helping struggling people to get a fresh start on life and get out from under the burden of medical debt.
