Purchasing Medical Debt

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This is interesting and needs to be broken down.  John Oliver from HBO’s Last Week Tonight spent $50 to start a debt-acquisution company, called Central Asset Recover Professionals, short for, “C.A.R.P., after the bottom-feeding fish.

Soon after, he was offered nearly $15 million in medical debt for less than $60K. But instead of setting out to collect the debt, he decided to forgive it, partly because “it was the right thing to do” and partly to claim bragging rights to “the largest onetime giveaway in television history.”

Not sure what to think of John Oliver as I don’t watch him enough.  All the clips I see are of him being a liberal wonk ragging on anything conservative or capitalistic.  I have a few questions and observations, however, from what he did.

  1. I can’t believe you can buy debt for that cheap and then try to collect it. Ridiculous.
  2. I think it is really cool that rich people could buy debt and basically absolve others from the gouging of hospitals.
  3. I think in the long run that if this trend happens we would be in more trouble.

It just seems that the hospitals have giving up on this debt. They know the people who are never going to pay and they sell it off to bounty hunters who try anything.  Good or bad that is reality.  Doing what Oliver did seems great but just letting everyone NOT pay their bill would not fix the healthcare cost problem.  You see, hospitals cost share by charging other people even more when they know some patients will never pay. So, if more and more people stop paying then other people get charged even more.  This means that your regular joe who believes in paying his bills will do so at triple the price or more. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. There is a ripple effect to every action and good old John Oliver gets to come off on the moral higher ground because he gives no context.  Life just isn’t that simple.

If what I am saying is correct then what Oliver did was just pander for ratings, which is just as bad as what he complaints about.