Today's single payer post, "medical debt score" edition

Fri, 03/21/2008 - 2:13pm — DCblogger

Health Reform, Medical Debt, and Hospitals – A Middle Class Issue

Hospitals are becoming more aggressive and sophisticated about collecting on debts. Many hospitals now are routinely checking credit scores of their patients and at least one credit bureau has developed a “medical debt score” that supposedly shows how likely a person is to pay their medical debts. I wonder if that includes an assessment of a patient’s health too? You can just imagine that computer analysis: Patient A has brain cancer = minus 200 points because they probably won’t be able to keep much of a job pretty soon.

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I support Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Per capita health care spending (2007):

United States: $7290
Switzerland: $4417
France: $3601
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Italy: $2686
Japan: $2581

-- Bob Somerby

The text of HR676 (Medicare For All) as PDF (30 pages). The FAQ. Compare HR3200 with HR676.

Medicare for All would save $350 billion a year (study in New England Journal of Medicine).

In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program*." -- Bill Moyers.

* Medicare For All.

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13:36:52 lambert Agree on Ron Paul and the Fed.
13:23:52 brucedixon interesting.... Glen tells me that neither the fake "jobs summit" nor the familiar wailing of conyers about his being disappointed with the prez are the big story. the most important thing happening in DC right now is the Ron Paul bill which wd require the Fed to be audited.
13:57:03 brucedixon I think my colleague Glen Ford is writing on it this week in BAR so I will just co-sign whatever he says.
22:03:36 Valley Girl I'd sure like Bruce Dixon's take on the Conyers comments. Just emailed him.
21:03:43 lambert Thanks, Jeff.
18:16:03 Jeff W lambert, I wrote to NOW about that Elizabeth Warren video not playing and got a response of sorts back, which I sent to you as a private PM. Just FYI.
02:28:28 hipparchia the first thing they told us my volunteer training: humans are natural born rescuers.
00:18:34 lambert One more study... [url]
23:57:37 lambert Joe Bageant is god. [url]
01:00:54 lambert The actuary was a whistleblower under Bush, too. [url]
00:47:48 hipparchia that's ok, jason stands ready to help smear the actuary quoted in that wapo article [url]
23:16:16 lambert Elders under the bus on Medicare, naturally. [url]
20:11:01 lambert 19:49:09 +100
20:10:18 lambert Capitalism in a world where we will throw as many taxpayers under the bus as necessary....
19:49:09 hipparchia elizabeth warren for president!
02:24:14 Jeff W Elizabeth Warren on the economy on PBS's NOW: you can watch it online here: [url] "If [Congress] gets it wrong, the country we knew is gone."
17:52:53 Davidson So, of course they're not going to show the truth about boxing her in from the beginning.
17:51:57 Davidson Yeah, that was just a comment in general, like, "Not even the RBC decision warranted scrutiny."
15:38:02 lambert That's not the RBC meeting, though. That's the smoking gun, beyond "Smart politics" (Wolfson).
14:17:16 Davidson Notice how everyone still avoids exposing the RBC decision

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