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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.
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“…Undue Medical Debt…uses state funds to buy medical debt in bulk from health systems and collection agencies for a fraction of face value.”
There it is, kids. Health systems are left holding the bag and must pass this cost on to other patients. This is the type of ‘management’ we expect from JB the Hutt. A broke state that can’t pay its existing bills taking on more bills it can’t afford. This is why Illinois is a fiscal mess.
I don’t have sympathy for collection agencies, since they can’t pass their losses on to people who never incurred these costs.
This debt isn’t relieved or eliminated it is transferred to an insurance company and the people who pay premiums or transferred to a Government program like USAID that uses tax payer funds to pay the debt.
The debt is actually forgiven. The State funds the program–evidently $2MM to date. They are using a firm who buys medical debt from providers at a substantially reduced rate, usually pennies on the dollar. Instead of attempting to collect the debt, they are instead clearing it. The firm is choosing which debt to purchase in accordance with the program requirements. It really does save money for program beneficiaries. It would be good to see some summary information on beneficiaries to insure that the program is fairly administered.
“The debt is actually forgiven. The State funds the program.”
Where does the state get its money? You are actually validating my point.
Revenue in our medical system operates on a bell curve, with the left side of the bell curve – paying the least – are uninsured non-payers, deadbeats who refuse to pay co-pays, and medicaid; and paying some, in the middle of the curve is medicare and some private insurance, and the right side of the bell curve, paying the most are self-insured rich people who don’t need insurance and private gold-plated Cadillac type insurance. The debt that was ‘erased’ for pennies on the dollar was likely from the left-end of the curve – the deadbeat uninsured and those other deadbeats… Read more »
Sounds analogous to us paying higher car insurance rates for uninsured motorists – another cost to the middle class that we’re so happy to bear