In early January, the Consumer Financial Protection Office (CFPB) It has been completed A policy to remove medical debts from credit reports. This decision is especially important for individuals who intend to expected health care costs and represents a pivotal transformation in how Americans are managing and financing their medical expenses.

But the Trump administration It aims to reduce CFPB. While the shortcomings in the office are definitely debateThe policy of removing healthcare bills from credit reports should be kept in place to protect patients from predators. In a truly just system, the hospital bill reflects the actual cost of care, with a reasonable margin, not an arbitrary price and designed to exploit people in their most weak moments.

One of the most terrible failures in the American health care system is the way you deal with emergency medical situations. When someone suffers from a medical crisis, a heart attack, a stroke, or a serious injury, they do not have Luxury selection Which hospital will treat them. Instead, it is transported by an ambulance to the closest or most appropriate hospital, often without any opinion on this. In any other industry, consumers choose their providers based on price, quality and personal preference. But in health care, patients are stripped of this basic right at the moment when they need urgent care.

Wearing prices

Going to the emergency room and foaming an arbitrary amount is remarkably similar to the price manipulation during a normal disaster. Both use people in situations that do not have a real option. When a hurricane, wildfire, or other disaster strikes, people often stood to evacuate, and they need basic supplies such as gas, food and housing. Take Personal protection equipment stored (PPE) during the Covid-19s, for example. In one case, the company was Condemn Of the 250,000 KN95s – the face of the face – from the foreign manufacturer and the sale of 100,000 of them to New Jersey grocery to obtain a 400 % mark. National Library of Medicine Find Factors such as falsification of prices, the shock of demand, and the disrupted supply chains contributed to the “highly high” costs of national hospitals through the first wave of the epidemic. Examples such as this explains the reason for the affected prices illegal In many states. The logic behind its ban is simple: when people are in crisis, they should not be used to meet the basic needs.

Hospitals do the same with emergency care. When someone faces a life -threatening event, they have no time to compare prices or shopping for the best hospital. They are transferred to the nearest facility, and they are treated without telling the cost, and Later This has nothing to do with the actual cost of providing care.

The main similarity is coercion under coercion. In both cases, people do not make free market decisions; They make decisions of life or death without being able to negotiate or move away. Just as the fuel station in the disaster area does not work in a fair market when you offer their prices three times, hospitals do not work in a fair market when they strengthen patients on thousands of dollars for care that they have never agreed at a specific price.

Healthcare repair

If wearing prices is unacceptable in the wake of a hurricane, then why is health care to be tolerated, as the risks are equally high? The fact is that hospitals participate in a legal form of extortion, which takes advantage of the absence of alternatives in emergency situations to increase profits at the expense of patients. It is a broken system that gives priority to financial profit for fairness and transparency, and needs serious reform.

Hospitals Justify Its arbitrary pricing by referring to the administrative complexity, unpaid care, and the burden of unbelievable patients. But these are just excuses for a system that lacks transparency and accountability. Unlike the free market, as companies compete for customers by providing fair prices and quality services, health care works in emergency situations as a monopoly. The patient has no bargaining force, no price knowledge, and there is no way to cancel the service subscription.

In addition, the medical debt is a flawed credit indicator. Unlike consumer debts – such as credit cards or personal loans – regular debts are often incurred due to emergency, diseases or accidents. According to the data Assembled Through the Commonwealth Fund, 72 % of medical debt stems from acute care cases such as hospital stays or accident treatments – or in other words, unexpected emergencies. Individuals rarely choose to face medical debts in the same way they may choose to finance a car or make credit purchases. However, for years, unpaid medical bills destroy unfair credit grades, which limits access to mortgages, auto loans and even job opportunities.

People are punished for medical debts for the financial instability created by the traditional health care system, and acts as a form of deviation by forcing individuals on a circle of financial hardship that benefit hospitals, insurance companies and group agencies while punishing patients. Many traditional insurance models Leave individuals With unexpected costs outside the pocket, high discounts, and trades practices, which leads to debt accumulation. This debt, when it is reported by credit agencies, makes it difficult for individuals to recover them financially.

CFPB policy ensures that people do not punish their health expenses, allowing them to focus on recovery rather than financial ruin. Although the future of the office is still determined, this policy must be maintained in place to reduce the long -term consequences of a actually predatory system and allow people to rebuild their financial position more fairly. Until this system changes, the Americans will remain trapped in a course of medical debt, forcing any price to hospitals decided by hospitals after the truth. This is not only unfair, it is blackmail.

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• Unbalanced incentives affect our health care system. Here is how to make America healthy again

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2025-03-20 17:15:00