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Just imagine what an identity thief could do! The possibilities are endless!
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Jun 6, 2016 08:31
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gently caress you, Oprah. It is done. It is done. I am the new queen of daytime talk.
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Jun 6, 2016 08:46
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Aliquid posted:gently caress you, Oprah. It is done. It is done. I am the new queen of daytime talk. It's al downhill from here.
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Jun 6, 2016 08:49
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Oh my god I nearly sunk into a depression just remembering the time I worked for a fine collections outsourcer that made us do the same poo poo with not being allowed to tell people when their debt was out of date (I quit with nowhere to go because it was making me suicidal!) That ending was great though. John Oliver rules, HBO rules for letting them do poo poo like that.
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Jun 6, 2016 09:34
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Kat Delacour posted:That ending was great though. John Oliver rules, HBO rules for letting them do poo poo like that. Haha, there's no way in hell he ran that decision past anyone up the food chain.
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Jun 6, 2016 09:42
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His show probably doesn't spend all the money budgeted towards production and this was done with the surplus. It was what, 60k he said? Probably one of the cheaper costs of the episode.
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Jun 6, 2016 09:52
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Capitalism's a real bitch.
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Jun 6, 2016 10:02
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hemophilia posted:His show probably doesn't spend all the money budgeted towards production and this was done with the surplus. It was what, 60k he said? Probably one of the cheaper costs of the episode. Spend it or lose it.
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Jun 6, 2016 10:44
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Air is lava! posted:The thing with debt is, once you have it it just keeps piling on. An average of 1500 My mom and sister ended up with a combined $60,000 medical bill (after insurance). Both were employed and insured. My girlfriend ended up with an $1800 bill (before insurance, I believe) for a ride in an ambulance and a brief hospital stay due to a kidney stone. She also ended up with an unrelated $5,000 bill (after insurance) for an emergency hospital stay because of an allergic reaction to antibiotics. She is also employed and insured. It is shockingly easy to end up with a huge medical bill in the US even if you are employed, insured, and financially sound.
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Jun 6, 2016 15:20
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MrPablo posted:It is shockingly easy to end up with a huge medical bill in the US even if you are employed, insured, and financially sound. Yeah, I know about such cases. I am still impressed that there are people who were convinced your healthcare system was perfect the way it was before Obama made everything worse. The concept of bankruptcy caused by healthcare cost is absolutely foreign to me. And to be honest I'd be afraid to visit your country without excessive insurance.
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Jun 6, 2016 15:31
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Nowhere has it perfect sadly. The US had the well known medical bill problems, while the UK goes the opposite route and puts you on a standard 2 year waiting list before they'll do anything with the hope you'll die of it in the meantime. Let's all move to Scandinavia.
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Jun 6, 2016 16:46
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Actually there are more than two countries in the world
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Jun 6, 2016 17:48
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Katana Gomai posted:Actually there are more than two countries in the world Yeah but countries that matter, can't be more than a dozen 
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Jun 6, 2016 18:13
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Canada's health care rocks, sorry you guys are broken. In all seriousness, that was a great segment, although I think the act of charity at the end is going to completely overshadow the overall point of how broken this system is.
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Jun 6, 2016 18:25
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Ali Aces posted:If John Oliver can forgive $14+ million debt by buying it up for under $60k, imagine what a wealthy philanthropist could do for half a million! This is the absolute cheapest debt, though. Debt that people literally cannot be sued for. The only reason debtors collect any money from this is because they are literal criminals who harass people into giving them money and people are, unfortunately, not adequately informed or protected by the legal system to fight back. Most debt is probably significantly more expensive to buy. If a wealthy philantropist is going to start throwing money at the problem I'd rather they throw it at lobbying congress to pass laws that actually fix the problem for everyone.
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Jun 6, 2016 18:28
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And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't medical debt not allowed to go on a credit report? So while you'll get harassing calls it technically can't "hurt" you
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Jun 6, 2016 18:30
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:If a wealthy philantropist is going to start throwing money at the problem I'd rather they throw it at lobbying congress to pass laws that actually fix the problem for everyone. This would be cool, but the problem is like a giant spider web and to fix things like medical debt bankrupting people, you would have to fix the costs of high medical costs which goes into things like high training/schooling costs, high equipment costs, pharmaceuticals, and staffing shortages(with hospitals not being able to afford more staff). Then each of those have their own special unique little problems and then you start getting into and finding out how lovely each of those things are and the reason why they are poo poo is because of another lovely system. Before I start rambling on and on, I'll just say that I'm not a very religious person, but the thought of a god just drowning the entire world and starting over again starts seeming like the best solution.
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Jun 6, 2016 18:51
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Medullah posted:And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't medical debt not allowed to go on a credit report? So while you'll get harassing calls it technically can't "hurt" you But the collectors, sure as poo poo, say it will.
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Jun 6, 2016 19:00
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Medullah posted:And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't medical debt not allowed to go on a credit report? So while you'll get harassing calls it technically can't "hurt" you Medical collections are reported on credit reports. For financing depending on what kind of loan you're getting they may be treated differently than regular collections for qualifying purposes, so it may not directly hurt you but it can still impact your credit score which may mean a higher interest rate or that you're not eligible for the loan.
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Jun 6, 2016 20:38
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MiddleOne posted:Haha, there's no way in hell he ran that decision past anyone up the food chain. you'd be surprised. hbo puts a TON of cash into the show, as it's decent ratings and the youtube clips get a really decent view rate Oliver was interviewed on Stern right around when the show started, it's a great interview and he touches on the HBO sides a bit. its only about an hour long https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQxyfbd2PzM
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Jun 6, 2016 20:51
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MrPablo posted:My mom and sister ended up with a combined $60,000 medical bill (after insurance). Both were employed and insured. How in the world is this possible? I mean, does your insurer not pay for the bills, or are the bills so ridiculously high (for pretty mundane stuff) that he cannot cover them fully?
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Jun 6, 2016 21:30
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Pre-Obamacare insurers were allowed to put a maximum benefit on what they'd cover. I think that was changed (mine doesn't have a cap so its never been something I've actually had to go look up). With my current insurance I think the most I'd ever be on the hook for is like $6k (which still wouldn't make me happy, but better than $80k) I think.
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Jun 6, 2016 21:34
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Several things inflate medical bills. Assuming someone is employed and has insurance... - Some young, healthy people used to sign up for the minimum insurance offered back before Obamacare tightened up the rules on what had to be covered. These plans might have $10,000 in-network deductibles, no out-of-pocket maximum, and a max annual payout of $X. This is cheap and great until you end up in the hospital for a few days. - Even now, many plans have high deductibles. You're generally allowed to take pre-tax income out of your check for a health spending account (HSA) to offset the effect of having that over your head. But it means that you will get large bills sometimes, especially if you underestimated your HSA withholdings. - Emergency care is crazy-expensive. And, many providers associated with it do not join insurance networks becausse there are regulations that require insurers to cover emergency care at the in-network rate; that means they get paid at billed charges instead of a contractual discount. That doctor who you see for 10 minutes will charge your insurance $500 or more. - Ancillary providers--pathology, lab, radiology, anesthesiology, etc.--who work at network hospitals also tend to avoid joining networks for the reason stated above. This allows them to charge large fees, and they don't care who pays them. They don't have to discount their rates. - Unreasonable bills. I work for an insurance company, and I've seen claims where a non-MD surgical assistant is charging $5,000 or more for their assistance to a surgeon who only charged $1500 for the actual surgery. That is no exaggeration. They also are not in any networks, so they hope to get paid the crazy billed amount by appealing any insurance underpayment, because after all, the insured isn't the one who picked the non-network assistant surgeon. - Shady practices. One thing we see a lot is this: someone goes to a practice for a colonoscopy, and instead of going to the hospital, the doctor says that they have an ambulatory surgery center right there in-house, so they get the patient to do the service there. What they don't know is that the surgery center that is on premesis operates as a separate business, is not contracted with insurance, and will bill $X, where X is a numbner that is guaranteed to grant the provider $5,000 after the patient's non-network deductible and out-of-pocket is met. This is just the tippy-tip-top of the shitberg, folks. And all of that is assuming that your insurance company pays every single claim 100% correct on the first pass. Considering that most bills have errors in the first place, that's just not how it goes. If you get an unexpected bill, always call your insurance company. Sometimes, they don't even have the claim to begin with. tarlibone fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 21:58
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Insurance companies can still deny payment for a procedure that they didn't do a pre-authorization for. A lot of people also don't seem to know that if that happens, you should contact your physician or medical facility about what happened and they should take care of it. They can also deny coverage if someone who was somehow involved in your procedure was out of your insurance network, but you should also contact whoever was responsible. Basically, if you are being denied coverage for something, let your hospital/physician know what is going on and try to get them to sort it out. This will also clear up a lot of issues with clerical errors, but if there is one of those, be prepared to correct them about 1000 times.
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Jun 6, 2016 21:59
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tarlibone posted:- Emergency care is crazy-expensive. And, many providers associated with it do not join insurance networks becausse there are regulations that require insurers to cover emergency care at the in-network rate; that means they get paid at billed charges instead of a contractual discount. That doctor who you see for 10 minutes will charge your insurance $500 or more. Yeah, even with my insurance which is reasonably decent for most things only covers ER visits at full-deductible levels. And since my local hospital (and maybe all of them idk) doesn't actually seem to be anything but a building I got charged by about 7 different people (something like $1k for the privilege of talking to the admitting nurse, another $1k from the ER doctors contractor, another from the labwork contractor, another from the xray contractor, another from the ER nurse contractor, hell, probably from the drat laundromat that handles the sheets too), all of which the deductible applied to, so my visit ended up costing me like $2k. I understand that they're trying to drive people to urgent cares instead of paying ER rates for a broken finger, but at this rate I'd drive myself to an urgent care instead of calling an ambulance if I got shot because gently caress those guys.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:06
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Azhais posted:I understand that they're trying to drive people to urgent cares instead of paying ER rates for a broken finger, but at this rate I'd drive myself to an urgent care instead of calling an ambulance if I got shot because gently caress those guys. ... well, yes and no. I've been in the game for a long time. Back in the day, when ER benefits were not much more expensive than UC, people went to the ER a lot more. And no, not because of more emergencies. They went because they had the flu, or a headache, or some other dumb thing that was in no way an emergency. They did it because going to the ER cost $35 and going to UC cost $25, and UC's weren't as common. They didn't want to wait a few days to see their doctor (also $25), so gently caress it, go to the ER. It cost them an extra $10, but the insurance ended up paying hundreds, if not over a thousand, more. But, insurance companies have no control over how ERs conduct their business. If we had our 'druthers, we would not get 7 separate claims for your 1 trip to the ER. We would not have non-network doctors practicing at an in-network hospital. We would not get charged what we get charged, which is needlessly inflated. We're stuck dealing with it just like patients are. The only difference is that we're a big company and can talk them down from their crazy prices most, but not all, of the time. As for notification denials and non-network denials... all of that depends on your insurance policy. I see policies where you have to get a referral from your PCP to step on a scale at the mall and policies where you can get elective brain surgery with no notification at all. I see no-deductible plans and high-deductible, plans with and without non-network coverage. It is up to everyone to know what is covered on your policies. Always, always, always, always, always call. When you get bills, definitely call the provider billing you, because only they can fix billing mistakes most of the time. Find out if they submitted it to insurance. But after that, call your insurance. I haven't been in customer service for years (I do analysis now), but I can't tell you how many times people were about to pay a bill that we'd already paid or hadn't even received.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:21
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My grandmother got sick in BC once. The ambulance fee was $500. Quebec's Medicare paid for it when she got home though. The same ride can be $2000 in lots of places in the US, just because.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:27
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When I was racking up hospital bills what got me was how it seemed like every single person that worked on you sent their own bill. $600 for my GP to stop by and check on me, $2500 for the anesthesiologist, $5 for the electrodes I was hooked up to and tones more. Each came in their own envelope and was treated as a separate charge. It's easy for something small to get missed and follow you around forever.
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Jun 6, 2016 23:13
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There's a lot of horrible things about debt. Theoretically, bankruptcy laws are supposed to alleviate the troubles of people who are caught in an endless debt spiral, but figuring out legal things like that is hard, so the people who benefit most from bankruptcy laws like that are jerkoffs who started out with such a huge amount of money in the first place that they'll have lawyers on retainer even if they're millions in the hole. Then they become the presumptive Republican candidate for president. The idea that all debts should be paid no matter what ignores what loans are supposed to be. It's a risk taken on the part of the lender. If they lend money to somebody who can't pay it back, it's their fault for lending it, and if they want the money back that bad, they should have to collect on their own dime, not just license it out as a vaguely legal excuse for extortionists to demand money from people.
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Jun 7, 2016 00:27
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I just spent a week in the hospital and it didn't cost me anything. Thanks Romneycare!
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Jun 7, 2016 01:05
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's a lot of horrible things about debt. Theoretically, bankruptcy laws are supposed to alleviate the troubles of people who are caught in an endless debt spiral, but figuring out legal things like that is hard, so the people who benefit most from bankruptcy laws like that are jerkoffs who started out with such a huge amount of money in the first place that they'll have lawyers on retainer even if they're millions in the hole. Then they become the presumptive Republican candidate for president. In Iceland there's a type of loan that adjusts itself for inflation. It's 100% usury and I can't believe it is in any way legal, but lots of otherwise intelligent people have put themselves in a place where they owe three times as much on a house now than they did 10 years ago. It should be declared illegal as poo poo, retroactively, and all loans immediately forgiven because gently caress that noise and gently caress the people who created it.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:20
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At my first job some years ago they pushed me to sign up for the high deductible health plan with an HSA because I was a "young healthy active adult." So I did because it seemed like a great deal and the monthly premiums were low. The part they left out though was that "young healthy active adults" tend to live an active lifestyle which means accidents happen and well one broken bone and surgery and physiotherapy later along with the pain meds etc I sure as hell switched to the most expensive monthly plan with a $500 deductible instead. My "bill" was 100k+ easily.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:29
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Demiurge4 posted:In Iceland Isnt Iceland normally good for imprisoning those types of people? They're getting a reputation for it.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:37
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So this guy is saying John Oliver's people contacted them about their debt cancellation project and then refused to give credit for itquote:Eight months ago, Charles Wilson, a researcher from John Oliver's HBO show, Last Week Tonight, contacted us to ask about our project of buying and cancelling debt. We kicked off the Rolling Jubilee in 2012 with a widely publicized telethon (featuring comedians David Rees, Lizz Winstead, and Hari Kondabolu and members of TV On the Radio, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, among others). The project went viral and has been regularly covered in the press over the years, including the New York Times, the Guardian and NPR.
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Jun 7, 2016 03:20
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It's not like either of them invented the practice of debt cancellation, so why should anyone give a gently caress?
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Jun 7, 2016 03:32
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nooneofconsequence posted:I just spent a week in the hospital and it didn't cost me anything. Thanks Romneycare! massachusetts doesnt count and you know that, its not even a state
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Jun 7, 2016 04:22
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:massachusetts doesnt count and you know that, its not even a state It was also not even Romney who came up with it but a man who is currently a federal prisoner
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Jun 7, 2016 04:24
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quote:At the last minute Wilson told us LWT did not want to associate themselves with the work of the Rolling Jubilee due to its roots in Occupy Wall Street. Instead John Oliver framed the debt buy as his idea: a giveaway to compete with Oprah. The lead researcher who worked on this segment invoked the cover of journalism to justify distancing themselves from our project. Sounds like it WAS the show's idea. LWT contacted them, not the other way around. And I don't see why they have to "justify" distancing themselves from a project they don't want to associate with. They changed their mind. Sucks for you, but they're allowed to.
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Jun 7, 2016 04:25
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rujasu posted:Sounds like it WAS the show's idea. LWT contacted them, not the other way around. Exactly. By their very own account, the show contacted the group because it was planning on doing a public debt cancellation thing, and wanted to talk to a group that specialized in doing the same. So it doesn't sound like they stole a single thing from this Rolling Jubilee.
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Jun 7, 2016 04:30
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bobkatt013 posted:It was also not even Romney who came up with it but a man who is currently a federal prisoner Hopefully Obama pardons him.
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Jun 7, 2016 04:43
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