Being sick sucks. Being sick and broke, sucks even more. But that my friends is where millions upon millions of U.S. citizens find themselves today, all thanks to our antiquated and vicious for-profit health care industry.
A new joint study conducted by Kaiser Health News and NPR has discovered that health care costs in the United States has left more than 100 million citizens across the country in debt. Yes, you read that right, 100 million. And that includes 41% of all U.S. adults. So how did the quote unquote watchdogs and our illustrious elected officials miss this rather massive debt crisis?
Well according to Noam Levy of KHN…
“…much of the debt that patients accrue is hidden as credit card balances, loans from family, or payment plans to hospitals and other medical providers.”
In fact, new polling and research has revealed that, not only have more than half of U.S. adults gone into debt because of medical or dental bills in the last five years, but roughly a quarter of adults now owe more than $5000 in health care debt. Drilling down even further and sounding an awful lot like those suffering under student loan debt crisis, KHN goes on to report that…
“…about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don’t expect to ever pay it off.”
This is utterly shameful. In a civilized society no one, NO ONE, should be going broke from getting sick or injured. Much less should a sector of society be getting rich off of the misery of others.
And this does not appear to be by accident. Dr. Rishi Manchanda, who served on the board of the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt told KHN that…
“Debt is no longer just a bug in our system. It is one of the main products. We have a health care system almost perfectly designed to create debt.”
Needless to say this has been a gift to the debt collection industry, not to mention the credit card vultures. Roughly 1 in 6 adults are currently paying off a medical or dental bill via credit card. And just how much health care debt have American’s accrued?
Well, going back to 2019 federal government data, U.S. citizens amassed an estimated $195 billion, at least, in collective medical debt. Which, as KHN points out, was larger than many a nation’s entire economies.
With so many millions of American’s now drowning in billions of dollars of health care debt, I bet you can’t guess what our lovely leaders on Capitol Hill are doing in response to this crisis?
Wait for it…
House Committee Boosts Defense Budget By $37B
If you answered handing out even more of our money to the Military Industrial Complex, you win this round of Where, Oh Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go? America’s most depressing and oldest game show.
Defense One reports that…
“The amendment would boost Defense Department funding to more than $839 billion, which is $8 billion less than in the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act.
While falling far short of the Senate’s gung ho $858 billion military spending bill, the House Armed Services Committee budget will still surpass U.S. President Joe Biden’s now considered paltry $773 billion gift to the Military Industrial Complex. And just what is the House Committee hoping to bring U.S. tax payers in return for all these billions?
The answer comes curtesy of Defense One once again, as they highlight that…
“The extra money would buy eight more F/A-18 jets, five more C-130 cargo planes, and one more frigate than the Biden administration has proposed, and pay to keep five littoral combat ships that the Pentagon wants to retire.
You gotta love these guys.
Yes, despite the Pentagon itself wanting to eighty-six these combat ships, the Lockheed Martin boot lickers in the U.S. Congress are instead choosing to keep them afloat and active, despite the useless cash holes they’ve proven to be. I guess they would rather spend on our money on broken warships than broken people.
If we want to bring costs down, the obvious thing to do is increase the supply of healthcare. Removing the artificial cap on new doctors would be a great start (and will be necessary under single payer, anyway). Removal of certificate of need laws would be another great move. In what world should your competitors be able to veto your new business?
You understand the problem but don't understand the solution - actual for-profit healthcare, not an over-regulated mess of insurance codes and paper pushers. The market is you and your doctor - everybody else is just a middleman driving up the price.
That said, it would be more responsible to spend our money on healthcare for our citizens rather than instruments of war. Even better would be to attack the problem at the source so we can fix the issue instead of papering over it -- again.
“Capitalists should never be allowed near a healthcare system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used or new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health.”
~ Chris Hedges