How banks and hospitals are cashing in when patients can't pay for health care

[ck4829]

Last edited Tue Nov 22, 2022, 06:39 AM - Edit history (1)

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can't pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

Hospitals and other providers, which historically put their patients in interest-free payment plans, have welcomed the financing, signing contracts with lenders and enrolling patients in financing plans with rosy promises about convenient bills and easy payments.

For patients, the payment plans often mean something more ominous: yet more debt.

For many patients, financing arrangements can be confusing, resulting in missed payments or higher interest rates than they anticipated. The loans can also deepen inequalities. Lower-income patients without the means to make large monthly payments can face higher interest rates, while wealthier patients able to shoulder bigger monthly bills can secure lower rates.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/17/1136201685/medical-debt-high-interest-credit-cards-hospitals-profit

[Xoan]

1. More obscenity from the Capitalists.

[ShazamIam]

2. Libertarian capitalists motto: Every human need must produce a profit.

Privatization for profit of all essentials.

Tightly regulated capitalism, to protect labor, consumers and the environment works, better than any system I know, the problem is our capitalists were de-regulated and allowed to buy, captured regulations, that
protected profits instead
and fled to China and other nations to avoid regulations for wages and labor protection, environmental protections and consumer protections.