Have we discussed what John Oliver did yet?
As I understand it, he started a company (for a $50 start-up fee) to buy up medical debt at the rate of half of a cent on the dollar. He bought about 9,000 people's debt for $60,000. And then turned it all over to non-for profit group and forgive all the debt which equated to almost $15,000,000 dollars of debt, tax free. Those people no longer have that debt.
Discuss and stay away from political, please.
I would think an interesting company model would be to do a similar thing but charge people double what you paid (which is not much) for the dept to excuse it.
Of course, resisting taking 100% would be capitalistically almost impossible.
Interesting thought.
What's the possibility that those people who have the type of debt that can be purchased at half a cent on the dollar are even trying to pay it off?
Not all debt can have the same rating can it?
I have little problem with it.
Most of the medical bills I have received have been so overinflated it would make you gag. $13,000k for an overnight hospital stay to tell me I did not have a heart attack. Apparently two negative EKGs and enzyme tests don't really mean you haven't had one. But they did not to tell me what was wrong with me. Fortunately, I have decent insurance, but not a good as before Obamacare.
From what I've understood, it wasn't current debt, but debt that was past the statute of limitation. Meaning he could buy it for that cheap because, technically, the debtees could no longer collect on it. But, with the lax rules around it, a collection agency could still badger people for money.
Granted, what he did still removed it from a collection agency trying to do it, but not quite what it sounded like.
Something else that was pointed out, which is even more frightening, is that besides the names, addresses, debt, the list also contained SSN's 
. And, to offset the cost, some debt collectors will not only go after the debtor for the money, but will sell the info to others for junk mail and such.....
-Rob
Damn! I just paid an outstanding medical bill from 2013 that I found via Credit Karma. I should have waited
RossD wrote: ...Not all debt can have the same rating can it?
No, this is very much hard to collect debt. That is why it is sold so cheap, the creditor has given up trying to collect and is selling it off cheap to try to get something out of it.
spitfirebill wrote: I have little problem with it. Most of the medical bills I have received have been so overinflated it would make you gag. $13,000k for an overnight hospital stay to tell me I did not have a heart attack. Apparently two negative EKGs and enzyme tests don't really mean you haven't had one. But they did not to tell me what was wrong with me. Fortunately, I have decent insurance, but not a good as before Obamacare.
8 minutes before flounder. Nice job.
aircooled wrote:RossD wrote: ...Not all debt can have the same rating can it?No, this is very much hard to collect debt. That is why it is sold so cheap, the creditor has given up trying to collect and is selling it off cheap to try to get something out of it.
Yeah, this.
Somewhat akin to Oprah conning Pontiac into donating a hundred or so base G6s, and then getting weeks of positive coverage for "giving" them to her audience. Except even less so.
Duke wrote:aircooled wrote:Yeah, this. Somewhat akin to Oprah conning Pontiac into donating a hundred or so base G6s, and then getting weeks of positive coverage for "giving" them to her audience. Except even less so.RossD wrote: ...Not all debt can have the same rating can it?No, this is very much hard to collect debt. That is why it is sold so cheap, the creditor has given up trying to collect and is selling it off cheap to try to get something out of it.
I think everyone is focusing on the amount because it makes headlines.
The bigger discussion is how easy it was for him to become a debt collector and what kind of information he was able to purchase......
-Rob
rob_lewis wrote: Something else that was pointed out, which is even more frightening, is that besides the names, addresses, debt, the list also contained SSN's
This is how some of the black hat guys go about buying large amount of personal info. Not necessarily to use but to check there own banks of data. Not that it is part of his show but the amount of info that credit companies have is insane and you have very little recourse to fix it. Lots of it is wrong, IE I am not a 68 year old women in Louisiana but I am on paper during my last clearance check.
I have seen some seriously egregious stuff.
In reply to The Hoff:
Not a flounder, a fact.
I caught that last night by chance as well. I now understand why I had such a hard time getting rid of some bills that were never mine and they kept doubling every time they went to a different collection agency. 1st one was a med bill from ASU medical many years after I was a student there. The other was a grip of parking tickets I got after selling my wrecked Civic to 'redacted' without removing the plate.
Best line 'berkeley you Oprah!', I was rolling on the floor with the give away part. I* highly recommend looking it up on youtube.
I'm curious how many medical bills are wrong. Last fall my wife broke her elbow in Nevada. We called our insurance company to find a hospital that took our plan and was directed to one in Las Vegas. I filled out a mountain of paper and the did a E36 M3ty job and sent its back to New York to see our doctor. So far they've sent me six notices that the Nevada dept of workers comp has denied our claim and have yet to send a bill to our insurer who has told me repeatedly that of the get a bill they will pay since they are a member hospital.
Wall-e wrote: So far they've sent me six notices that the Nevada dept of workers comp has denied our claim and have yet to send a bill to our insurer who has told me repeatedly that of the get a bill they will pay since they are a member hospital.
FYI if it's a workers comp claim, and the accident did not occur in your state of residence, you have the choice of what state the claim gets filed under - which can have significant impact as the rules vary widely from state to state.
At this point, I'm not sure you'd have the recourse to go back and ask for a jurisdiction change, but if there was any lost-time as a result of the accident and/or ongoing medical issues, it may be worth speaking to attorneys in both NV and NY to get their take on the situation.
If you can buy out that much gross debt and "pay it off" with so relative little, doesn't that equate to a ludicrous over charge of cost in the first place?
Wall-e wrote: I'm curious how many medical bills are wrong. Last fall my wife broke her elbow in Nevada. We called our insurance company to find a hospital that took our plan and was directed to one in Las Vegas. I filled out a mountain of paper and the did a E36 M3ty job and sent its back to New York to see our doctor. So far they've sent me six notices that the Nevada dept of workers comp has denied our claim and have yet to send a bill to our insurer who has told me repeatedly that of the get a bill they will pay since they are a member hospital.
I can tell you that I have had bills that I've contested that the hospital coded wrong and I had to have it resubmitted to the insurance company. I would then get told it could take up to 90 days and within that time the hospital ends up sending it to collections.
In reply to petegossett:
It's not a comp claim. It happened on vacation and I have no idea why they are submitting it to comp since they've been told repeatedly that our insurance company would pay them if they would send them a bill.
In reply to Wall-e:
I remembered it was vacation, I just thought it might have been a company-sponsored trip. Sounds like the hospital's billing department isn't worth a E36 M3.
We were once sent to collections for a medical bill we never received.
Another time, it took the wife over a year to get one bill straightened out all because of the coding.
former520 wrote: Best line 'berkeley you Oprah!', I was rolling on the floor with the give away part. I* highly recommend looking it up on youtube.
Wait, did he actually mention Oprah? I didn't watch the Oliver bit. I just thought of it as a similar situation.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c
On the YouTube page: Click "Share" then "Embed", copy then paste link:
I know how, just didn't think of doing it
So-lets get rich! If you could buy your own debt and forgive it that could lead to all sorts of sleezy, but technically legal money making. The problem is you cant just buy your own, you have to buy them by the thousands of records. The only way I can see to do that successfully is to amass a large enough group of people that you have a statistically high chance of your debt being in that group. I cant think of a better way to amass a large group of people than through a pyramid scheme. An awesome part that offsets cost while you are waiting for someone in the group to get ahold of your debt, you can harass people to collect on their debt you have bought-or to join the group by buying a large chunk of debt and becoming part of the pyramid. Eventually the whole credit system would just be people amassing and buying their own debt and collapse in a giant ball of rubble and flames.
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