New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy forgives $100 mln in medical debt

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

August 20, 2024 7:35 PM EDT Updated 10 hours ago


NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Nearly 50,000 people in New Jersey will have $100 million in medical debt erased, Governor Phil Murphy said on Tuesday, in one of the largest cases of a state providing direct relief to people unable to pay medical bills.

Murphy allocated $550,000 in federal American Rescue Plan funds and partnered with Undue Medical Debt, a non-profit that buys unpaid medical bills from hospitals at a discount, to execute the one-time debt abolishment.

New Jersey residents who qualify for the relief began receiving letters on Monday, according to a press release from the governor's office. “Medical debt accumulates very quickly and can follow a person for decades," Murphy said in the release. "We are wiping the slate clean for thousands of New Jersey families, eliminating their debt, and making a real, tangible impact on their lives."

Those who qualify for the relief are at least four times below the federal poverty level or have medical debt that equals 5% or more of their annual income, according to the press release.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-jersey-governor-phil-murphy-forgives-100-mln-medical-debt-2024-08-20/

[groundloop]

1. It's sad that this is even necessary. We need Universal Healthcare like nearly all other advanced countries.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. The average hospital stay

(at least around the PA-NJ-DE tristate area) ends up often being $8,000 - $10,000 per day. And if you have no insurance or insurance that doesn't cover much, that's a big debt that also comes with harassing debt collectors.

[C0RI0LANUS]

3. What a decent man to initiate a medical debt jubilee. He must be a Democrat.

[twodogsbarking]

4. Health care for all. Get employers out of the business of providing health care.

It is beyond idiotic but we have always done it this way.

[Grins]

7. Completely agree! Been saying that for years.

Getting employers involved was a way for government not having to pay for health care - "Give it to employers and let them work it out!"

Health care is an issue of National Security! Treat it as such.

Business would love it!!
Imagine their bottom line if they didn't have the burden of doing something completely outside of their business.
More - imagine how Wall Street would react if that money was given to stockholders!

[ck4829]

5. K&R. Our healthcare system is essentially a welfare program for medical debt collectors.

[C0RI0LANUS]

6. Pure naked racism is why all Americans don't have universal health coverage

Southern legislators and racists "feared that free and healthy African-Americans would upend the racial hierarchy", the historian Jim Downs writes in his 2012 book, “Sick From Freedom.”

Farm and domestic workers — more than half the nation’s black work force [in he 1930s] were excluded from New Deal policies, including Social Security.

The effort to marginalize the first generation of free black Americans infiltrated nearly every aspect of daily life, including the cost of insurance.

To prevent black people from getting accessible and affordable health care, the conservatives basically said: "No American gets it."

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/universal-health-care-racism.html

Prudential https://daily.jstor.org/how-insurance-companies-used-bad-science-to-discriminate/

[question everything]

8. Do you mean $100 million? Not $100 Minutes?

[BumRushDaShow]

9. The headline has it as a lowercase "m" "l" "n" for "million"

You may be thinking the lowercase "L" is an "I" (font issue )