-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
Meanwhile if you are White and have a job the bill collectors will be hunting you down for that $4 aspirin tablet you were given at the hospital.
I was a graduate student at Rush U in the early 1990s and met a married student from PRC who brought his entire family including 3 boys here. He took the boys to Cook County Hospital for treatment and told me that it cost him nothing. I responded by telling him that as a Cook County homeowner my bill was exactly $800 for the previous year; he was embarrassed. Schools such as Rush U as well as construction firms exploiting cheap labor dump the medical costs on the taxpayer. No wonder many years ago NumbersUSA pointed out that Illinois was… Read more »
Gee, I feel like a fool for actually paying a hospital bill a while back. I also paid off my student loan in the 90s. What’s wrong with me? Where can I get some help?
LOL would you really want to destroy your credit over a five year old $300 medical bill?
More rewarding of people who take little personal responsibility for themselves and their families.
Cook County is haven for folks who are savvy enough to “work the system”, to receive benefits from subsidy programs of government agencies, even use food banks, and by working for cash-based employment opportunities, to dodge both reporting of accurate incomes, and payment of income taxes, furtively achieving middle-class lifestyle, on back of other taxpayers.
This is fairly common in immigrant communities here, both in Chicago and in many suburbs.
So Big Hospital and Cook County worked out a deal between themselves to give Big Hospital (which is really Big Hospital, Big Doc-n-Big Pharm) $80 million in return for Big Hospital writing off $800 million in bills that they claim they’ve been trying to collect from patients. Big Hospital gets to pick which bills to write off. Patients who owe money don’t actually get to apply for this public-aid themselves. They just get a letter in the mail. Since Medicaid eligibility pretty much insures you’re paying nothing for your health care, and Big Hospital claims they’re only writing off debts… Read more »
It occurred to me to suggest that I doubt that the collection agencies the hospitals used to collect their now-forgiven debts ever offered to settle with the patients for one-one hundredth of the bill they were trying to collect. $3 would have taken care of the $300 bill owed by the woman in the Sun’s article. She’d have certainly paid three dollars herself to make the collection agency quit calling-n-texting her 5 times a day. I wonder how Big Hospital decides which of their debtor patients who are financially eligible for this program get picked to have Cook County pay… Read more »
Doubtful that this woman would have even paid $3 to take care of the bill. These people, as a general rule, don’t ever under any circumstance pay their co-pays and deductibles. This is pretty reflective on credit reports too where up to half of some minorities have medical collection debts on their reports. Like seriously, you won’t pay the $12.00 ACL labs co-pay for your blood work? Really?
Many of this bunch ignore paying any debt – look at our upcoming “Mayor”, who was a deadbeat paying traffic fines, water bills, etc. Here in Evanston we’ve got two City Council members who’ve received eviction notices in the past several years. They wave it away by saying, “Remember, we’re a historically – repressed minority…” They of are young, single, and able – bodied. They are also very LOUD about reparations, onerous business regulations, etc. Here’s one of the deadbeats; he also got arrested for driving without a valid DL: https://evanstonnow.com/signs-say-alder-is-behind-on-rent/ Signs say alder is behind on rent “Signs appeared… Read more »
This only makes more people not pay their hospital bills. Reward nonpayment and penalize people who pay. Great program for economic destruction of the system.
Next it will be credit card and mortgage debt. You know, because of equity and stuff. Have a Bud Light and enjoy the sh!t show.
But property taxes will never be erased. An unlimited source of revenue for taxing bodies. Properties are just ATM machines.
This is pure racial discrimination