Would a hospital ever refuse you care if you have outstanding bills or hospital bills with collections?
Comment on How do poor people in the states give birth without money?
ozymandias117@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Do people ever avoid hospital visits
At least in my experience, we’ll generally be able to go to the hospital
Do hospitals put people on a payment plan
Generally, I’ve just seen the debt transferred to a debt collection agency afterwards, since there’s no money for them to take. They’ll harass you, and it affects your credit score, but they can’t send you to jail
moistclump@lemmy.world 8 months ago
jeffw@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s illegal in the Emergency Room. Anywhere else they can. Poor people end up relying on Emergency care, ignoring bills, and the hospitals write it off as “charity care,” which helps them justify their non-profit status, when they’re non-profits
ozymandias117@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Depends on the severity of the issue.
For a life threatening emergency, no
For like pain relief, yes
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
The hospital must stabilize you and save your life from immediate danger. They don’t have to make you better or solve the problem.
Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Credit score? Is it like the Chinese social credit system?
ozymandias117@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah, just the American version
Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Love how everyone went insane with the social credit score while you got the same shit done to you and no one batted an eye
plz1@lemmy.world 8 months ago
US credit score won’t get you sent to jail or a re-education camp, at least. At least, not yet.
Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My favorite part is when one of the three companies that does ours leaked all of our data with relatively no consequences.
www.ftc.gov/…/equifax-data-breach-settlement
Arbiter@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well if it’s the free market abusing us it’s okay. That’s just freedom.
hamsammy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I mean it’s not like your credit score immediately gets affected for something like jaywalking though.
misanthropy@lemm.ee 8 months ago
It can even impact being hired for jobs. Low credit score? You might be untrustworthy or motivated to steal
Gigan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s not comparable at all. In the US your credit score only goes down if you borrow money and don’t pay it back. If you get a loan and pay it back on time your credit score will be fine.
I’m not super familiar with the Chinese credit system, but I think it’s effected by a lot more. What kind of products you buy, how much you work, posting certain content online, etc.
Norgur@kbin.social 8 months ago
Not only American. We in Germany have shit like that and most other European nations have it as well afaik
otter@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
It exists in most places from what I can tell, but the specific implementation may differ
fubo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t have a credit score, and have never had a problem renting. It’s getting a mortgage that I can’t do without a partner who’s been consistently paying off a credit card for decades.
ozymandias117@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My credit score want good enough, so I had to give the last place I rented 6 months of my employers payments to rent
I’ve never missed a payment, nor do I have any debt. I just don’t exist in the system enough to rent
theyoyomaster@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The US version is a system that calculates the risk of loaning money vs being paid back. In order to be approved for a loan the credit score is used to evaluate whether or not it is likely to be paid back within the terms of the loan. As a result those with bad credit have trouble getting favorable terms for cars, housing and basically anything that can’t be purchased outright. Does it negatively affect people for things outside of their control and perpetuate cycles of poverty? Absolutely, but it is based in actual fiscal risk to calculate sustainable loan practices.
China on the other hand took the US term of “credit” and abused the everloving shit out of it to punish people that the government dislikes. Did your cousin post a Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh meme? Well too bad that you were shopping for a house, because your “credit” is no longer high enough to not be homeless. You should have thought of that before you were related to someone who disagreed with the government!
Not being able to demonstrate to a bank that you are financially reliable enough to pay back a loan is unfortunate, but a rational reason for an unfavorable interest rate or denial of a loan. Making people ineligible for even renting an apartment that is within their financial means because the dictator in charge dislikes you is a completely different thing altogether.
Powerpoint@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
At this point, pretty much
scarabic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
As the name hints, a credit score is used to rate the risk of making you a loan. It’s not some essential personal ID. It only comes into play if you are applying for credit and is a set of shared records that financial institutions and private companies use to decide if loaning you money is a good risk or not.
Uranium3006@kbin.social 8 months ago
yes, but in the classically American fashion we only care about money so much only the money stuff even goes into calculating it
xenspidey@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Well yeah, because it’s only used when talking about loaning money…