If it were the right family member and a debt collector came in person to collect a fee from them or me in a time of dire medical emergency, I'm just unstable enough to make that person my special project. Not shoot them or hurt their kids or anything, but just fark with them for as long as it takes for them to find a new line of employment. The point is, there are plenty of people less stable than I am and much more creative than I am.

So, the people that come into your hospital room must have nothing they care about in the world or they really wouldn't do it. Should you feel sorry for them? No. Treat them as inhuman as possible. Every insult, every aggressive move. Spit on them, shiat on them, bleed on them, scream at them. Threaten to butcher their cat, who you've found out from their friend's facebook page is named Mr. Fluffs, and who just celebrated his tenth birthday. Maybe, maybe some of it will pierce their lack of soul and hurt them just a fraction of how they hurt you. Just maybe. If they're smart, they won't do this kind of job for long before someone DOES do something irreversible.

/fark bill collectors

Teknowaffle: I'd fake a spasm and "accidentally" fling blood into their mouths, and then tell them I had aids.

"You don't know where i've been, loooooouuuuu!"

cman: Do you know what the best way is to avoid a debt collector?

Give a fake name and SSN

/Be careful, you may end up in prison

Or tell them to stop contacting you, in writing. The problem here is these bastards are posing as hospital employees (probably dressing up in scrubs with hospital-looking name badges). I have no sympathy for debt collectors, they're the scum of the earth.

I haven't had a debt collector come after me before, I just kept having debt collectors calling me for Paul Torres, from several different debt collection companies that kept calling and demanding That if I'm not Paul Torres (and we know you are, don't lie to us) that I tell them where Paul Torres is.

One company I had to send a cease and desist letter to, since they wouldn't stop calling EVERY DAMN DAY leaving automated messages in Spanish. I had to listen to a message over and over again to extract the phone number that Paul Torres was supposed to call (again, in Spanish, which I don't speak). I called repeatedly and left messages, eventually got someone on the line who promised they would fix it (they didn't) then eventually sent a cease and desist letter with a threat of legal action if it was not complied with. The latter worked.

Poor Americans consume too little healthcare, especially preventive healthcare. Other Americans-often rich Americans-consume too much healthcare, often unwisely, and sometimes to their detriment. The American healthcare system combines famine with gluttony.

Chief Medical Officer at the American Cancer Society-Dr. Otis Brawley

Wait,I thought hospitals were these free places where healthcare workers donate their time. You mean you actually have to pay for medical services?

/Worked in an ER in college and saw the horrors of farkheads abusing the system
/Ex-GF is an ER doc
/Most people in SoCal ER's are not emergencies and should be thrown out

Folks?

Debt is the only industry left.

Selling people's privacy is an industry. Dope, both ends of the game, is an industry. Suffering is an industry. Using money to leverage property away from it's owners is an industry. Incarceration is an industry. Writing people tickets for doing 37 in a 35 is an industry. Welcome to the post "they moved he game board overseas", service economy. Please peck at the flesh of the person seated nest to you as he pecks at yours. It's he new commerce.

Anybody get their trickle down, yet?

change1211: Wow, that is just pathetic. Remind me again why socialized health care is a bad thing for the US?

Because, as with anything else, healthcare gets worse when it becomes an entitlement.

This country is no longer a developed nation, it has become practically impossible to maintain a "middle-class" life-style. Unless you call being indebted literally for the rest of your life by housing, medical, education, and transportation costs the "lucky" middle-class oppose to the "poor" that don't have the credit.

StanTheMan: change1211: Wow, that is just pathetic. Remind me again why socialized health care is a bad thing for the US?

Because, as with anything else, healthcare gets worse when it becomes an entitlement.

That's funny, because I have never had any issue with care in what you'd consider my much maligned socialized healthcare.

kidgenius: Elandriel: cman: America: Where its patriotic to not pay one's debts

Will you give it a rest? The average person can't pay a goddamn $70,000 medical bill when they need emergency surgery and are in the ICU for a few days. That doesn't mean they're a deadbeat.

True.

But, there are the cases mentioned where people already have outstanding/past due accounts and are coming back for more care. If I'm the hospital, I would be pissed that I have to give care to this person that has already shown that they can't or won't pay for the thousands of dollars of service I'm about to give them.

I've BEEN the hospital. No, we didn't like it. You know what else we didn't like? The fact that the law is written so that poor people have no option when sick EXCEPT wait until it's an emergency (and WAY more expensive to treat) and then come in to the ER, which cannot refuse treatment.

And before you even bring it up, closing the ERs will help things a bit, but most hospitals will then get about a lawsuit a week for refusing to treat some rich but "deadbeat-looking" man is refused care and he or his rich surviving family sue them for (essentially) killing him, often because of his race, or mistaken identity. Not to mention such a situation guarantees the same dark-ages world where a man could get away with murder just because he looked like a lord instead of a peasant.

But HCR is the devil and we need to keep the US healthcare system exactly as it is. STAY THE COURSE, REGRESSION GOOD, AMERICA AM BEST!

pippi longstocking: This country is no longer a developed nation, it has become practically impossible to maintain a "middle-class" life-style. Unless you call being indebted literally for the rest of your life by housing, medical, education, and transportation costs the "lucky" middle-class oppose to the "poor" that don't have the credit.

I'd post the cartoon with the yuppies feeling sorry for the homeless guy who is the only one with a positive net worth.

I am lucky to have health insurance. It takes a bite out of the paycheck, though, and I have a lot of student loans. I wouldn't be able to afford cancer, even with my insurance. There are tons of co-pays and charges that would add-up, I'm sure. In-hospital is $100/day and I'm sure there are other charges for procedures, specialists, drugs, etc.

cman is actually a foreign national paid to post comments on websites which are typically USA-centric

this is not cman's only gig

cman is rich, Rich, RICH from this work as a shill

the average american would cut off cman's genitals with a chainsaw and then remove the offending cman skull from the neck with a dull butter knife

i am completely appalled that the average american would resort to such extremes to silence the freedom of speech of this cman, and i would testify on behalf of cman in court

Englebert Slaptyback: what makes you think labor is a medical emergency?

...you mean other than the fact that if certain complications occur, delaying treatment by only a minute or two could end up killing the child, the mother, or both?

pippi longstocking: This country is no longer a developed nation, it has become practically impossible to maintain a "middle-class" life-style. Unless you call being indebted literally for the rest of your life by housing, medical, education, and transportation costs the "lucky" middle-class oppose to the "poor" that don't have the credit.

The wealthy have been dismantling this brief and spotty hiccup of history wherein there were people who weren't either feudal lords or coughing, bent backed serfs for quite a few decades, now. Thank you for noticing. Now if we can just get everybody to put down the flag they were handed and told to feel privileged to hold high - until the whip lands on THEIR backs - maybe we can put a wrench in the monkey. Not worshiping avarice, violence and German cars would be a good start.

coldcuts: toraque: Aarontology: America: Where a debt collector has more rights to hospital visitation than gay people.

Man, it must suck to be a gay debt collector around here.

Although I'm not sure how you'd go about collecting a gay debt.

I'd bet the opening line is something like "So I understand you are in arrears?"

Haha! I thank you for this. I was seething with anger over how stupid it is that anyone in this country continues to deny that single payer is the most practical way out of this mess, but now I'm giggling and ready for happy hour.

KrispyKritter: you simply tell them you are the patients brother, uncle, some sort of direct relative.

For future reference - yeah, this doesn't work. I've tried a few times and was threatened with arrest for it, not to mention the slurs thrown my way after I gave up and walked off.

SultanofSchwing: StanTheMan: change1211: Wow, that is just pathetic. Remind me again why socialized health care is a bad thing for the US?

Because, as with anything else, healthcare gets worse when it becomes an entitlement.

That's funny, because I have never had any issue with care in what you'd consider my much maligned socialized healthcare.

Hey, shut up you Commie.

Nabb1: I'm betting this is aimed at people who come into the ER for every damned thing under the sun, like a cold or a hangnail, and not people with legitimate emergencies. I'm not advocating the practice, but I can see where they'd have a problem with repeat deadbeat customers abusing the availability of services.

The ER staff are already aware of these people and don't waste any resources on them.

When it comes to debt collection companies, they pretty much do the worst things imaginable. Passing themselves off as health care workers to try and intimidate someone into paying large hospital bills using the threat of denial of emergency care for a serious condition sounds EXACTLY like what a debt collector would do.

Speaking as someone who has no issues with debt or unpaid bills, I hate debt collectors with a fiery passion.

In some of the situations presented, the collection agency was doing this without the consent/understanding of the hospital involved and did not have the authority to tell the patients what they did, yet did so anyways based on their companies internal procedures. It's cheaper for a hospital to just absorb the cost of a ED visit than it is to risk a huge lawsuit/fines/negative media.

That said, I'm an asshole, but what kind of farking monster do you have to be to pretend to have the authority of a hospital and tell someone in a childrens hospital emergency room to pay or leave, all so you can get a gift card bonus at work? I try to be polite to call center folks and bill collectors, because sometimes a job is a job, but goddamn. I can't imagine being desperate enough to do that.

Marcus Aurelius: kronicfeld: Marcus Aurelius: That's not a very popular solution, considering that the majority of personal bankruptcies are over medical bills.

Fallacious statistic. The majority of personal bankruptcies list a medical provider as a creditor or claimant. That is not the same as the claim causing the bankruptcy.

You must have different statisticals than me.

That Harvard study, found here (PDF Warning) says:

Illness or medical bills contributed to 62.1% of all bankruptcies
in 2007

Stories like this just depress the crap out of me. You under 40's don't even know what a great country this once was, and how far it has fallen.

Neither of my parents are college grads, they both worked blue collar type jobs. Back in 1973, when my parents bought their first house, they were making a combined weekly salary of $520....adjusted for inflation that would be about $2,700 a week in today's money (I, a college grad, never managed to make more than half that). They both also had health insurance through their respective employers....where one insurance left off, another would pick up. They paid $38,000 for their first house, and they put down $18K as down payment. Mortgage, not counting taxes/insurance, was $215 per month.

My parents weren't any kind of anomaly either. I know a man who is a Vietnam War vet. After he got out of the Army, he used his GI Bill benefits to take a training course in welding. A year out of the Army (1968), he got a job as a welder working in construction for $10/hr plus benefits.....that works out to about $50/hr in today's money. By the time he was 26, he was married, owned his own home, two cars, and was raising two kids. His wife stayed home with the kids until they were old enough to go school.

Starting about 1980, things started to slowly deteriorate for people like my parents, and the rest of the bottom 80%.....and things are still going down hill today.

You all should check out this movie. Inside Job

If you can watch this movie, and not be enraged, you are either an idiot, or a member of the 1%,

tforbes: the cheerleader who got away: Debt collectors = scum of the universe.
Yep, I specialize in stating the obvious.

Tow-Truck Drivers see your statement and raise you their personal level of ass-hattery.

How about debt collectors for tow-truck drivers? Not quite a hat trick, but still...

StanTheMan: Wait,I thought hospitals were these free places where healthcare workers donate their time. You mean you actually have to pay for medical services?

/Worked in an ER in college and saw the horrors of farkheads abusing the system
/Ex-GF is an ER doc
/Most people in SoCal ER's are not emergencies and should be thrown out

I agree with you. I think ERs should be able to check that you have insurance before they treat you and wheel your ass out the door if you can't pay. Mostly because we'd get single payer really farkin' quick that way.

azhais: I don't have a landline and have DSL. They'll generally let you just get the DSL (for a slight upcharge).

Oh, I asked. They refused.

I'm a raging alcoholic and consequently very poor with no insurance. So should other people be forced to pay for saving my life when I show up at the hospital with acute liver failure and no way to pay for my treatment???

If it were a loved one of mine that they were hassling before they got emergency care, that debt collector would be happy that he was in an emergency room.

crispyone: I'm a raging alcoholic and consequently very poor with no insurance. So should other people be forced to pay for saving my life when I show up at the hospital with acute liver failure and no way to pay for my treatment???

If they are people I don't like, sure, why not? They can afford it.

Kanemano: Nabb1: I'm betting this is aimed at people who come into the ER for every damned thing under the sun, like a cold or a hangnail, and not people with legitimate emergencies. I'm not advocating the practice, but I can see where they'd have a problem with repeat deadbeat customers abusing the availability of services.

Counter argument "My breast has fallen off. Can you reattach it?"



You know, I worked in a hospital where I watched quite a few folk rot from the inside like that, but that story still gave me pause. Sometimes I think to myself every right-wing asshole in the country needs to be held down and forced to listen to that story, or another one like it.

Then I remember they just don't listen, or hear what they don't want to hear.

cookiefleck: Ima say something that isn't gonna be popular... people in debt are given more rights than the people they owe money to. Despite what either candidate says. These people are called "professional debtors". You can give them two, three, months to get their finances in order, but they won't.


This is because, once upon a time in America, people's rights were considered more important than money.

Nana's Vibrator: What about late night debt collection calls to your house for people you're related to but live 100 miles away? Or people you're not even related to and don't even know? Because that's what I keep getting. Collectons, telemarketers, spammers, spyware programmers, virus programmers. Give me a chainsaw and put me in a room with each and every one of them. I will win.
/did I miss anyone?

i hear ya on this one. PennCredit recently sent me a collection notice for a bill that was the same name as mine,but at a different address,to my address. i guess they just look thru the phone book and send bills to anyone with the same name. the original bill was from our local water provider,missouri american water. they were useless,insisting i needed to prove i wasnt the one who owed the money,excuse me,but this was not my wrongdoing. gonna have to check my credit report to make sure i dont get dinged for thier mistake.

downstairs: You can give them two, three, months to get their finances in order, but they won't.

So, 40,000.00 hospital bill.

Whatever the hell it is they're managing to make in their present, post treatment condition.

Minus three months rent, electric, gas / heating oil, food, meds, gasoline, mandatory car insurance, data and telcom, the odd meal, and soap and shampoo and bumrag.

Sure, there should be plenty left over. F*cking lazy deadbeats. Welcome to the museum of not getting it. Everything here is carpeted and we have maid service. Don't you?

cookiefleck: zetar: cookiefleck: Ima say something that isn't gonna be popular... people in debt are given more rights than the people they owe money to. Despite what either candidate says. These people are called "professional debtors". You can give them two, three, months to get their finances in order, but they won't.


This is because, once upon a time in America, people's rights were considered more important than money.

I would think giving 3 months of not having to pay your bills, interest free is pretty generous.

Yes because people living paycheck to paycheck and had to take time off due to injury or illness can easily pay thousands of dollars in medical bills in a 3 month period. All they have to do is magically get a better job, not eat or live out of their car. Just so farking selfish of them.

Insurance companies have entire floors, in large buildings, that are full of people who work tirelessly to find a way not pay what they said they would pay to their insured. And nobody calls them deadbeats.

I'm pretty sure they have more than just "access." I'm pretty sure that these folks run the show now.

A few years back, girlfriend got appendicitis. We were both young, working through college, from low-income families, so neither of us had insurance. A cheap medical clinic told her she was on her period, and then she passed out for about 2 days. When she woke up, her appendix had burst and gone septic, it was clear it was serious, so we went to the ER.

They asked for payment up front, of course. When we couldn't, they struck us in the waiting room for about 15 hours. At one point, they asked me to move her (she passed out) to the bathroom so she wouldn't be in the way.

Once they finally admitted us, they put us in a room and ignored us for 20 more hours. Finally, they did a laparascopic appendectomy and discharged her. Those are a cheaper method used for mild appendicitis--when someone has gone septic for 3 days it's basically missing the point.

So, of course, a few days later, she's passing out turning yellow, so we go to a new hospital. They give her some painkillers and discharge her. So we go to another. That one finally admits us (after another similar process), and gives her the correct surgery. They botch it.

So it's back to ER-hopping to correct the mistakes of that surgery. Then months of recovery. All told, she gets in the hole a few hundred thousand dollars. Basically, the annual interest was more than she had any hope of making in a year, so we handled the debt by ignoring the phone or the mail.

We tried to sue, but most of the places we went to lost the relevant medical records that would've given us a shot , and anyway lawyers don't like to take cases that don't involve death or permanent disability because the payout is so much less (to them, I assume. To us, recouping our costs would've been great).

So, that's my rant. Well, maybe it's not. Unrelated, but to get it off my chest, it's 6 years later and she got diagnosed with MS. FOr 90 days of the medication she needs (and will need for the rest of her life) it costs $12,000. We have insurance now, but they want her to pay the 12k up front every 90 days and then reimburse her. We're both out of college now, and are lucky enough to be able to pull it off, but that's just f'ed up.

...

So yeah, when people talk about parasites on the healthcare system, I guess we're them. It occured to me that if I got MS instead of her, at that cost for the medication, I'd be a net loss to society (I teach, so I make less than her). Society would actually be better off if I died. I'd be one of the people that at presidential debates the Republicans shout should kill themselves. So yeah, something to think about.

All bill collectors are deadbeats. Hell, I'm a deadbeat who didn't pay bills and I laugh about because to me, it's funny. I don't care how it's affected other people, because I don't care about other people. Bill collectors are among the lowest scum on the globe, and should be taken out & shot. In the head. Oh, and if you need to go to a PUBLIC hospital, just tell them you are broke and without work and remind them they receive public funding.

cookiefleck: zetar: cookiefleck: Ima say something that isn't gonna be popular... people in debt are given more rights than the people they owe money to. Despite what either candidate says. These people are called "professional debtors". You can give them two, three, months to get their finances in order, but they won't.


This is because, once upon a time in America, people's rights were considered more important than money.

I would think giving 3 months of not having to pay your bills, interest free is pretty generous.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Is this about buying a living room set? This thread is about sick people and debt collectors in hospitals going through patient's medical records.

The buying furniture on an installment plan thread is two threads over.

I've never understood the american medical system.

On one side you have a company interested in making money who provides a service they can bill a lot for because it's essential. On the other side you have a company interested in making money and the best way for them to do that is not to pay out to companies like the first company.

Somewhere someone is going to take the hit and it's usually the person that actually needs the help. They can do everything right and by the books and still, STILL get screwed over.

I know I've not taken out more than I've put in to the medical system up here. I've been very, very lucky. It's nice to know I'm helping out folks that haven't been so lucky, and nice to know if I need it that it is there.

Booface1985: It occured to me that if I got MS instead of her, at that cost for the medication, I'd be a net loss to society (I teach, so I make less than her). Society would actually be better off if I died.

But that's no what a society is for, is it? Until we all stop tacitly agreeing to duck money's dick, we're doomed. Because we invented it to serve us, not to serve it.