health

Will New Oversight of Credit Reports Stop Unscrupulous Debt Collectors?

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The newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will start to oversee the companies who generate credit reports on you. That's Experian, Equifax and TransUnion plus about 30 more.

This action can come none too soon. Unscrupulous debt collectors inaccurately report actions to credit reporting bureaus all the time, especially for Medical bills. Getting these illegal collections or inaccuracies and errors off of one's credit report is next to impossible. Credit reporting agencies simply do not respond it seems to challenges. Experian, as an example, doesn't even have a phone number! Of course you can sue them, but even small claims court is not for the faint of heart and it's not guaranteed one will win, even when being in the right.

One of the biggest problems turning up on credit reports are medical bills. Who does not know billing from Medical facilities is loaded with errors, duplicates and mistakes? Yet more and more Medical companies are turning into the sellers of debt and even bring debt collectors into the Medical practices themselves. That's sloppy, inaccurate medical debt, often for services subpar or not rendered. Literally the health care sector is in the business of selling debt, demanding loan shark interest rates, almost the minute you walk out the door from their facility.

If You Want to Decrease the Budget Deficit, Decrease Health Care Costs

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With the never ending pundit pontificating on the budget deficit and how we must cut spending, it seems always the bulls-eye is on the backs of the U.S. middle class, poor and national interest. Yet, even the Wall Street Journal notes health care costs are out of control. In their number of the week, they amplify the U.S. Spends 141% More on Health Care than other nations.

 

The Euphoric Drug of Profit - Part II - A Brief History of Drug R&D

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In the previous post, The Euphoric Drug of Profit, I asked the simple question, should pharmaceutical drugs be for profit at all? They are life saving compounds after all, something for the public welfare and good.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), funds billions of taxpayer dollars in public research.

Before 1980, the results of publicly funded research, often performed at United States universities, was considered public domain (de facto).

Some of the problems with this scenario were:

  • basic research was not taken to product and final development
  • funding basic research does not fund the 75% additional costs of bring results to use by the general public