21st Century Wire says…
This latest stunt only goes to show what a complete rip-off the US healthcare industry truly is.
This week, John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight trumped media mogul and billionaire Oprah Winfrey by announcing he will forgive the medical debt of 9,000 people.
Presently, the US healthcare industry has the world’s highest and most inflated medical pricing on goods and services – pushing millions of Americans into debt over health treatments which should not cost the same as a brand new Lexus SUV or Land Rover. Despite the hype, Obamacare did nothing to address this fundamental flaw in the US system. In fact, it made the situation worse, and has turned out to be absolute boon for the corporate insurance racket.
If Obamacare was really all it was cracked up to be, then it would’ve done en mass what John Oliver demonstrated on his show – buying up medical debt at a merger one half cent on the dollar, and then putting that into cold storage. Instead, Obamacare only succeeded in RAISING the cost (and debt) of healthcare for individual payers.
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The Guardian
Watch out, Oprah Winfrey. John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, outdid TV’s biggest gift giver on Sunday when he forgave nearly $15m worth of medical debt on his show.
Oliver’s “giveaway” came at the end of a 20-minute segment on debt collectors. The segment focused on the bad actors in the industry, who buy debt from banks for cents on the dollar. These predatory collectors attempt to recoup the debt they purchased using threats and other aggressive tactics without first verifying the exact details of the debt.
“Once the company has bought your debt, whether the information is accurate or not, they are going to try to collect on it,” Oliver explained on Sunday.
Last Week Tonight spent about $50 to create a debt-acquisition company in Mississippi. The corporation’s name is Central Asset Recovery Professionals Inc – also known as Carp. According to Oliver, soon after its creation, Carp was offered a portfolio of medical debt worth $14,922,261.76 at a cost of “less than half a cent on a dollar, which is less than $60,000”.
(…) “Thanks to this 5 June airing of the HBO comedy series, Last Week Tonight show with John Oliver, there are a lot more of us now privy to this collection industry practice and the debt treadmill it creates,” said Craig Antico, co-founder of RIP Medical Debt. “In a painfully hilarious (debt as funny? Somehow, yes) piece, John Oliver triumphantly out-Oprah’s Oprah in giving away valuable gifts.”
Continue this story at The Guardian
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