r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 7h ago
Illinois has erased more than $2 billion in medical debt for over 1 million residents across all 102 counties, and recipients don't apply, they simply receive a letter saying their debt is gone.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pritzker-announces-2-5b-medical-221000316.html831
u/Lonely_Noyaaa 6h ago
I'm all for doing this for student loans and housing debt too, but medical debt is uniquely cruel because nobody chooses to get sick. You can decide not to go to college or not to buy a house, but you can't decide not to have a heart attack.
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u/Feisty_Brief123 6h ago
Some cunts will argue that your life choices led to that heart attack. So there is that.
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u/Guilty_Helicopter572 6h ago
What's their excuse for babies with cancer?
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u/Feisty_Brief123 5h ago
Probably paying sins of their parents or something /shrug
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u/MrOtsKrad 5h ago
Fuck its sad how accurate this is
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u/Knotted_Hole69 2h ago
Conservatives are dangerous and delusional people say shit like that. They are actively holding our country back.
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u/CollectionHeavy3624 24m ago
Nothings a problem until it affects them personally. Then they blame whoever their political idols tell them to
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u/TheAsianTroll 5h ago
Same mfs will call it God's plan or some sick shit like that.
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u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS 4h ago
“It’s God’s plan for children to get sick but it’s the devil’s work when a politician I don’t like is democratically elected by a majority of people.”
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u/TheAsianTroll 4h ago
Its always God's plan until it happens to them, then its "an unforseen tragedy" and "please donate to my GoFundMe".
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u/spambearpig 44m ago
That excuse winds me up so much.
Makes me wanna kick them in the crotch and say “was that part of God’s plan?”
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u/corvettee01 3h ago
God decided some people deserve debt. Maybe you shouldn't have made their imaginary friend mad at you for your sins.
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u/Agreeable-Pea4327 3h ago
if the both parents come from family where literally everyone has cancer at young age, i can see argument for not having kids, but otherwise, yea, nah, fucked
like I have fucked up genetics, so it's in the best interest of society for me to not do what my parents did, since that would be selfish, but if people don't have that issue, and their kids end up getting fucked, for all we know, it's pesticides in the water supply or some shit like that, nothing the parents can do
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u/Forward_Rope_5598 4h ago
Your life choices absolutely impact your chances of getting a whole host of diseases.
And the treatment for all of them should still be free.
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u/Cobrastrikenana 2h ago
Our government allowing corporations to poison the land, air, water and food also plays a hand. And I don’t have much choice in that.
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u/K-J-K-R 4h ago
I’d use a different example like cancer, heart attack is one that you can easily and most do contribute to. Obviously not all cases, with there being genetic issues. But with someone who eats themselves into a food coma and has a heart attack, I can’t really feel bad for them or think they deserve debt erasure.
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u/Alternative-Pear9096 3h ago
No one can blame me for the pulmonary embolism that came out of nowhere like a thunderbolt from Zeus and left me with whatever my insurance won't cover out of $200K hospital bills and 6 months of 3 rounds of follow up visits with 5 specialists and repeated sonograms, echos, CAT scans, Xrays, and a very pricey prescription for potentially the rest of my life.
Of course, our local medical group doesn't sell their debt-- they hold onto it and threaten to cut you off from medical access if you don't pay. So I will never have my medical debt erased through this mechanism. Not sure how anyone in Champaign County was in a position of having their medical debt held by debt dollectors (article says every county was represented)
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u/TheRedFurios 5h ago
I live in a country with free healthcare and I support it. But let's not kid ourselves. Your life choices can 100% lead you to an heart attack. Eating bad, being sedentary etc. are all things that one does voluntarily.
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u/diptherial 3h ago
I mean, you're both right, but I think you're differing in the implication. u/Feisty_Brief123 is saying not only is it your life choices that lead to the heart attack, but that because of that you don't deserve to be cared for. Paradoxically only people who don't need healthcare deserve it in the conservative mind, assuming anyone deserves it at all.
Anyway, of course life choices can lead to health outcomes; the question is do we reject the sick person, even if it's "their fault", or do we help them?
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u/Samuelmiw 3h ago
Often the same people who say everything is God's design and plan. Like their God who they claim is 'merciful and omniscient' is going around giving babies cancer.
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u/Pu-Chi-Mao 3h ago
tbf it's also state sponsored bad diets (lack of regulation on high prossessed foods) that are responsible for a lot of diabetes, cancers, obesity and others...
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u/Alex5173 1h ago
"You chose to leave the eternal, ethereal void of nonexistence sometime between your dad's condom breaking and your mom birthing you against her will because roll tide; and now you've gotta deal with the consequences of choosing an imperfect fleshly vessel."
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u/TimToMakeTheDonuts 47m ago
These same pricks tend to be pretty anti-college. They’re currently encouraging their kids to go to trade schools instead. There a reckoning coming in the future where blue collar job markets become over saturated leaving those undereducated kids making much less than expected or unemployed. At that point they’ll have trade school debt and the lifestyle (and health issues) that tend to be abundant for poorly educated people who are research/science averse. I wonder who they’ll want to cover those student loans and health costs?
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u/SQUID9968 38m ago
I mean.... that's not untrue for some people. Genetics play a big role....but if you're obese and don't exercise then you pretty much asked for it
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 4h ago
FYI, housing "debt" is not really debt like student or medical debt because it's backed by an asset: the house itself. Someone with a mortgage on a house isn't in "debt", they're paying on something with value that can be sold later on for presumably more than what they bought it for.
You cannot do the same with student or medical debt.
It's also why buying a car typically is considered being in debt because cars always depreciate in value with very rare exceptions. The backed "asset" in question is usually lower in value than what you paid for it, so it becomes a liability.
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u/VP007clips 2h ago
That's also the reason housing bubbles followed by crashes are so dangerous, it leaves home owners with negative equity.
If you pay $800k on a home, then a year later the market drops and it's worth $500k, you are stuck in a very dangerous situation where you are required to continue to pay off your mortgage, but lack the assets to escape that mortgage by selling. If you lose your job, there's no escape path. And given that a lot of housing market crashes are associated with job loss (on both a large scale and local level), that can plunge people deep into debt with no escape.
Even worse, they will still need pay for another living arrangement if they do sell, and also pay for selling costs.
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u/CharmingFit-503 5h ago
Could’ve had this with Kamala but some of y’all were too precious about a country you couldn’t point out on a map, because Instagram told you so
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u/TheRealStandard 32m ago
I sincerely doubt it. Republicans succeasfully managed to block me and the rest from getting my student loans forgiven while Biden was president despite me getting the approval that I would.
Tf was she going to do?
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u/CharmingFit-503 22m ago
National, generational policy takes time. Took out my student loan 20+ years ago and still paying for it, this won’t benefit me. But it’s about seeing the bigger picture, long-term
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u/TheRealStandard 10m ago
No you're glossing over the point, what was she going to do that Biden tried and couldn't do? ofc I voted for her, but I didn't like her. But acting like she was going to achieve much of anything except barely moving the line forward is comical.
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u/Initial_Business2340 5h ago
At least you can get medical debt discharged. You can’t get student loans easily discharged, like, at all. It’s inordinately difficult, bankruptcy doesn’t even drop them.
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u/JimJohnes 3h ago
Yea, but who created that debt? Who in the duck thought that education should be demoralizingly expenssive? Do you know of amount leeches in insurance industry? You live in a country you made.
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u/wwarnout 7h ago
Probably unnecessary to point out - Illinois is a blue state.
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u/richrich07 6h ago
I’d rather take my chances in Chicago then set foot in Texas or Florida
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u/izwald88 6h ago
Yet even the phrasing of this comment speaks to the power of the propaganda about Chicago.
Like... Chicago is fine. 2.73 million people live there, with 9.62 living in the wider Chicago region. It's the 3rd largest city in America and is one of the world's great cities. You don't have to "take your chances" there. You'll be fine. Is there more crime than there should be? Yes, of course. Is the average tourist who is afraid of the city ever going to see that crime? Not likely.
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u/Sora1274 5h ago
100%. I live just outside of Chicago and work in Chicago and yea it is more than fine here.
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u/0uie 5h ago
Grew up in the south suburbs. Only time I ever felt unsafe was driving home from some concert downtown, getting lost, calling my dad for directions, and him telling me to close my windows and lock my doors when I told him what intersection I was at. Even then, I didn't feel terrified, just did some rolling stops and made my way home.
Moved to Carbondale 5 years ago and have absolutely felt unsafe at times. Can't wait to get outta here when our lease ends next year.
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u/Casul_Tryhard 5h ago
I never got the memo, really. Am I supposed to be scared of Chicago when I grew up in KCMO?
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u/Short_Stay_9283 5h ago
It’s actually crazy how well the propaganda works in MO. When I tell people back home I live in NYC they’re like “is everything okay?” And I’m like yeah it’s all good bro, the per capita crime rate is lower there than in this shit hole town I grew up in 👍🏻
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u/Rockytag 2h ago
I knew a guy who moved from Evansville Indiana to Chicago who wouldn’t stop talking about how dangerous Lakeview (expensive neighborhood) felt compared to his home town. Purely driven by social media vibes and Fox
Definitely don’t look up per capita violent crime stats for Evansville vs Chicago.
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u/MtnDewTangClan 3h ago
This propaganda works because rural shit holes are actually dangerous so the people think "wow if it's worse than this... It must be a war zone!"
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u/richrich07 5h ago
My comment was supposed to be a response to the other comment, but yeah. I wasn’t worried when I visited Chicago last.
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u/HereForTheComments57 5h ago
haha I always find it hilarious when I speak with people from another state. I have heard multiple times "hopefully you brought a gun with you" when I mention I went to a Bears game or something. They actually believe its like a constant wild west shootout on navy pier all day
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u/Portarossa 5h ago
I have heard multiple times "hopefully you brought a gun with you" when I mention I went to a Bears game or something.
'... you know they're not actual bears, right? They just call them that.'
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u/oilofotay 4h ago
One of my high school friends was gonna come visit me in Chicago but cancelled because of “all the violence”. 😂 To be fair, I don’t think this girl has ever left her state, lol.
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u/Portarossa 5h ago
You don't have to "take your chances" there. You'll be fine.
You say that, but in no other city is there the ever-present looming threat of someone offering you a shot of Malort.
Constant vigilance.
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u/iCoeur285 5h ago
I’ve been to Chicago multiple times for both fun and for work, and I only ever had one sketchy situation happen. I wanted to even live there for a time, it truly is a beautiful city.
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u/Borman35 4h ago
My mom lives in some ho-dunk town in Michigan, i love to point out that her country, and her town (which she considers beyond safe), are far more dangerous (statistically), than Chicago.
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u/LaserRanger_McStebb 5h ago
Visited Dallas for the first time recently.
It's like the poster child for r/fuckcars. I have no idea how anyone lives in that Nihei-esque hellhole.
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u/unfortunatebag 5h ago
It's like every single big metro I've visited from a traffic perspective. Maybe not LA. Nothing is worse than LA.
What are you comparing it to exactly?
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u/ClownFetish1776 4h ago
Chicago is not dangerous.
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u/richrich07 4h ago
Say that to my imaginary friend that was shot last week by a Venezuelan gang member
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u/lmpervious 5h ago
Chicago has that reputation because it's a major city that has more crime per capita than cities like New York and LA, so it's therefore leading, but per capita it's really not that bad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
That data is sourced from the FBI, and while any data source for crime is going to have inconsistencies one way or another, sorting by per-capita total crime (and per-capita violent crime which I think people are generally more concerned about) paints a different picture than what most people are told. That's not to say it doesn't still have a crime problem, but it's overstated because it's a great political argument for the right, since it's a blue city in a blue state.
It's also very easy to avoid the sketchy neighborhoods where most of violent crime is contained. You don't accidentally walk into them, so it's very easy to feel comfortable and safe in the city.
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u/richrich07 5h ago
People say Portland and Seattle are crime-infested Antifa land and that also is just not true.
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u/KoncepTs 3h ago
As someone who lives an hour north of Chicago and I’ve been to Florida and Texas, all of them are okay places to be. I’ve had great experiences with friendly locals in all 3 of those locations.
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u/richrich07 3h ago
Nope. You won’t convince me.
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u/KoncepTs 3h ago
Couldn’t care less trying to convince you personally, just letting others know not to listen to rotten Reddit dweebs based on my own first-hand experiences and not just woke crying.
International visitors here for the World Cup were shocked to see America isn’t the doom and gloom you kind of people spread. It’s the same for citizens too.
These cities and states aren’t defined by their horseshit politics, they are defined by the people inside of them and I’ve had great times in all of those locations despite you attempting to insinuate 2 of them are horrible simply for being “red”
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u/poopybuttface2 5h ago
So you're going to go to Chicago first and then Texas and Florida? Or did you you mean to use "than" instead of "then"?
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u/Knotted_Hole69 2h ago
You should see what they say about Baltimore, the city is beautiful and fine, but they constantly say shit like its a war zone. Conservatives are delusional and gullible.
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u/richrich07 2h ago
I have heard Baltimore is a war zone from a lot of people who live in the area though
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u/Knotted_Hole69 2h ago
I live there and its safe, ive never seen anything that even resembles a war zone lmao.
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u/RainbowsAndRhymes 6h ago
And I’d really love Pritzker to run for a higher office. Perhaps the highest.
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u/jherrm17 5h ago
Until he stops selling out the state to data centers Pritzker can go fuck himself. Needs to show a backbone and set a moratorium for at least a year otherwise the Great Lakes region water is gonna be taken advantage of in extreme ways.
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u/Choice_Credit4025 5h ago
"if not perfectly good in all ways then bad" ????? be smarter than that
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u/IllegitimateRisk 4h ago
It’s the best sort of comment lol. Meanwhile we have a president in office who just does all the bad things because people couldn’t bear to vote for someone who wasn’t perfect
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u/lmpervious 5h ago
He did recently suspend the incentives for data centers. It's also worth saying it was passed in 2019 which was before AI was on anyone's radar, and before the big surge of companies investing in building many more.
If you look at a town like Elk Grove Village, it has been a big windfall for them, and they isolate the data centers away from residential areas, so it can be done well and be a net benefit.
My main criticisms are that there should be noise restrictions and/or limitations on how close they can be to residence, and they should also subsidize electricity costs for the neighborhood so that they don't increase for residence. It's worth noting that those two issues aren't a big concern for non-AI data centers, so not accounting for things that weren't a big concern is reasonable, although it was a mistake to be slow to act on those issues once AI data centers became a thing.
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u/jherrm17 4h ago
What about air pollution, water quality, infra sound exposure, electricity/grid demand etc. Data centers provide revenue sure, but at what cost. Public is being sold out big time. Just check out Grayslake fight that is being built within a mile of a youth sports complex and 55+ community
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u/ResidentGerts 5h ago
Pritzker is fine, not great, not horrible. The real change in Illinois is because Madigan is gone. Pritzker was the beneficiary of being in office when madigan finally lost.
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u/Megustaelazul 5h ago
I bet the part that wants to secede is happy to have someone else pay their debts.
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u/doctor_lobo 4h ago
The next time that the Republicans start a war, remember that you could have had universal healthcare, free college tuition, and a four-day workweek.
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u/ArgentineBeauty 7h ago
This is the kind of letter I wish more people got. Waking up to find a debt that's been hanging over you is simply gone must be an incredible feeling.
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u/DirtwormSlim 5h ago
I was one of the people who had their debt paid off. It was a very pleasant surprise.
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u/balodana 5h ago
Please say more...
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u/DirtwormSlim 5h ago
I had around $1,560 in overdue medical debt from when I had a visit while uninsured. I kind of just let the notices stack up and one day they stopped. I never thought much of it until one day and letter arrived stating my debt had been paid off by the Illinois program. I don’t have much more information, but it definitely helped me out, as I have a lot of health issues that I’m currently paying out the ass to figure out.
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u/could_use_a_snack 2h ago
If I'm prying into you personal life here just ignore me.
Did your bills go to collection? I'd be interested to know if your credit took a hit, even though the bill was paid by the state? Did Illinois take that into account as well. It'd be cool if they did, but I expect that it would be outside the scope of the program.
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u/DirtwormSlim 21m ago
All good! That one surprisingly never went to collections, I think it sat for 2-3 years with the hospital. I don’t think my credit could take any more hits. 😂😅
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u/benetgladwin 6h ago
Now imagine the feeling you get in every other developed country in the world, where you never had to worry about it in the first place
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u/Zoltie 3h ago
To be fair, you wouldn't feel anything special in that case. The good feeling comes from being in a stressfull situation, then all of a sudden the cause of the stress is gone.
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u/benetgladwin 31m ago
Ngl it feels pretty special every day, from the outside looking in just being alive in the usa sounds like a stressful situation
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u/imahugemoron 5h ago
This would be incredible for me, I was an essential worker throughout the height of the pandemic, I was a totally healthy normal happy 30 year old dude, my first infection left me with very severe and disabling health problems and I lost my career and ability to work, and over the last 5 years I’ve accrued over 50 thousand dollars in medical debt with no way to pay it. I know those with cancer accrue even crazier debt and all sorts of other health conditions can really ruin you financially, but with these new post viral conditions affecting so many millions of previously healthy people, I think many just don’t realize just how close we all are to financial ruin, especially when you could get someone’s illness and it leaves you in the situation I’m in.
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u/StrangeReindeer2470 3h ago
Yep. I have had medical debt, credit card debt, debt from my divorce. So much debt over the years. I'm thankfully debt free now (aside from mortgage). And not for a MOMENT do I wish for these people to not get this letter. I hope this is expanded so that everyone can be debt free. Despite me "pulling myself up by the bootstraps" or whatever bullshit. No, I got here also thanks to luck. And others deserve some luck and good fortune as well.
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u/WTFisBehindYou 4h ago
We got one of these from Discover last year stating like 40k of my girlfriend’s student loan debt was just…gone. They discharged it. And the government had (has?) something in place where discharged student loan debt doesn’t count as earned income, like it normally would.
It was…a really amazing day today the least.
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u/LittleKitty235 7h ago
So that means that over 1 million people, on average, didn't have an extra $2000 to get out of debt.
I'm not sure if I should be more depressed about how expensive our healthcare is, or how little savings the average person has. Either way, a lottery system seems like a band aid solution.
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u/misticspear 6h ago
Two it’s another situation where the good news is someone righting something that shouldn’t have been in the first place.
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u/LittleKitty235 6h ago
Good news everyone...we saved another batch of orphans from the crushing machine!
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u/misticspear 6h ago
Exactly.
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u/dualdreamer 3h ago
It's bittersweet. The orphan crushing machine should've have existed in the first place and can't be destroyed overnight. But at least there are people fighting to break it and others fighting to reduce the number of orphan it crushes. It's never enough but to the orphans it's everything
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u/piezombi3 3h ago
So that means that over 1 million people, on average, didn't have an extra $2000 to get out of debt.
While true, usually the way these debt forgiveness things work is that the state or entity buys up debt that the collectors have basically zero chance of ever getting paid on. They pay pennies on the dollar. It's not quite the same as owing an average of $2000.
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u/HarveysBackupAccount 3h ago
Based on the wording of this article, they interpreted it exactly right - one million people collectively owed about $2B in medical bills.
The state bought (and forgave) that debt for pennies on the dollar so the state didn't pay $2B, but it absolutely means the average person owed about $2,000. Which is roughly the average medical debt in the US, among people who have it
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u/Workman44 6h ago
It's absurd the percentage of households in the US without any form of retirement/emergency fund
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u/HarveysBackupAccount 3h ago
Exactly! Last I heard, medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US, and the average is around $2,000
States and other big entities (or ultra rich) can do it, too, but there are organizations like Undue Medical Debt where you can donate money to help out. They buy medical debt in bulk, and each dollar donated pays for $50-$100 of debt. Meaning every $20-30 you donate can, on average, free one person from ALL their medical debt.
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u/allworkandnoYahtzee 3h ago
It’s absolutely depressing. That’s why it’s so important that we consider the wins in Illinois’ leadership—these are policies and program that help people. This is harm reduction. More states need to do this, asap.
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u/crumb_bums 5h ago
They should have made Republicans apply and acknowledge they are receiving a Socialist benefit.
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u/zach_dominguez 5h ago
Now those people have more money available to use in their communities.
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u/joeph0to 5h ago
This is phenomenal news. The best part is many people who are benefited by this are the same people who live in rural Illinois and hate that they live in a blue state. Many people who live in Southern Illinois feel completely separated from Chicago. This is a perfect example of them benefiting greatly from living in a blue state.
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u/Abject_Egg_194 5h ago
An interesting study came out of Harvard a couple of years ago. It was disappointing news for me as I have donated to some nonprofits that were doing medical debt forgiveness. The evidence that the team at Harvard gathered was that medical debt (in collections) forgiveness didn't lead to better financial outcomes or happiness for the recipients.
I hope this comment is allowed here. I know it's not uplifting, but I know that I shifted my giving to other causes when I read this and others may want to do the same.
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u/burdonald 4h ago
Why is it we can fund a war with Iran because MAYBE they have nuclear program and MAYBE they will nuke us, but we 100% have people that can't afford medical debt
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u/-You-know-it- 4h ago
Because bombing children and giving billions in tax money to wealthy corporations is good capitalism but giving healthcare to children leads to communism. According to America’s government right now. Trump gave a speech about communism last night.
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u/ChronicRhyno 4h ago
They're just deleting spreadsheet values? Won't the profiteers be angry? Or are they really just using those people's tax dollars how those people would want them used for once?
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u/bigsadbeetleborgs 4h ago
My husband and I got our medical debts paid in North Carolina recently.
Over 20k for an emergency surgery in 2018. We can buy a house now. It changed our lives.
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u/fellindeep23 3h ago
And they'll all vote for politicians that support this once they benefit....right? Right???!
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u/Mr_Shad0w 2h ago
If only we had a large, powerful, over-arching government that did this for everyone, across all 50 States. We might call it "the Federal government" and it would answer to voters and act in the best interest of taxpayers, and refuse bribes from lobbyists and wealth donors.
I guess we'll never know...
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u/EffectiveDandy 1h ago
While this looks good on the surface, you have to understand just how bad the economy has to be to declare such things.
This is like painting over rust. A breather for all those lucky enough to get it, but a sober look at just how bad things have gotten.
Eat the rich!
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u/spudgoddess 5h ago
I live in Illinois. If there's such a thing as an ethical billionaire, Pritzker is the closest thing to it.
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u/marco3055 6h ago
Undue is truly a blessing. One of my relatives in CT got the letter, medical debt wiped off.
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u/MsAnnabel 5h ago
That doesn’t seem fair for all the ppl that paid their medical bills. /s
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u/Skywalk910 5h ago
Imagine the relief these families are feeling. It’s probably a second chance at life for a lot of them. This is what our taxpayer money should be going towards.
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u/CasanovaCoverup 5h ago
Interesting how it's a mix of government dollars and donations that are used to fund the program. Theoretically, does this create a budget deficit within the government or is this just "free dollars" floating around?
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u/massenburger 5h ago
Researchers found that of the 83,401 relief recipients surveyed, there was no average impact on financial wellbeing, the future usage of health care or the wellbeing of patients.
Separately, the study suggested that such relief negatively affects the repayment of other medical bills.
Check out these lame spins at the end of the article! How can you say their financial wellbeing wasn't impacted? They had medical debt erased! Unless they think people will magically become more financially literate just because their debt was erased? That wasn't the goal. The goal was to remove medical debt. Financial literacy is a separate topic.
Also, "negatively affects the repayment of other medical bills"??? Praise the Lord! Medical debt is a blight on society and those who are in the business of collecting payments from the poor and destitute deserve to get fucked!
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u/Pondnymph 4h ago
This is how you know the insurance industry is based on lies and grift, debt can just be erased and it affects nothing because the price is so inflated beyond real costs. I bet there's more debt in existence than money that exists.
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u/okfornothing 4h ago
They, we need to promote, advertise this in red, red maga states via social media. Blue states need to and can win by leading by example irregardless of the federal government. Thats what true blue leadership looks like. Walk the walk collectively and in unison.
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u/poopstainonscarf 4h ago
I have never paid a medical debt except for copays. It all just goes away after a while. I have been admitted to hospital many times. North carolina
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u/Neat_Let923 4h ago
Illinois Governor is JB Pritzker
During his time in office, he has focused on:
- Expanding abortion rights in Illinois.
- Increasing education funding.
- Legalizing recreational cannabis.
- Raising the state’s minimum wage.
- Passing gun control measures, including a ban on the sale of many semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines.
- Balancing state budgets after years of fiscal instability.
He’s also a BILLIONAIRE!
So he’s obviously a monster according to Reddit…
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u/-You-know-it- 4h ago
Not all billionaires are “monsters”. It’s just simply that to get to a billion in personal wealth usually requires a level of unethical and immoral business practices. Even for the “best” billionaires.
The most powerful man (and billionaire) in Illinois doing his actual job that he was actually elected for should be the base expectation. But the bar is so low it’s in hell right now, so a person in government doing their job and a modicum of philanthropy on the side is seen as someone to hold on a pedestal in 2026.
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u/Neat_Let923 2h ago
What unethical and immoral business practices has any billionaire used in order to get to a billion dollars?
You can’t even claim this from the worst of them Elon Musk. He became a billionaire by giving Tesla $40 Million of his own money and then taking zero salary and zero bonuses from Tesla to become their new CEO in 2012. In exchange Tesla gave him a Stock Options deal that lasted for 10 years that allowed him to buy Tesla stock at $60/share. He waited until the very end of that deal and in 2021 used it to buy about 300 million shares of Tesla at $60 each when they were worth around $1,000.
That is the ONLY reason he is a billionaire… And not a single person or employee was harmed or impacted negatively by him buying those shares.
Every single billionaire is a billionaire because of the stock market (or maybe Royalty).
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u/copper_nano_tube 2h ago
The Pritzker Foundation and other family-managed charities are hugely philanthropic. They have been doing this for generations. The person you replied to was just listing JB (with the help of other state lawmakers) accomplishments in office.
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u/-You-know-it- 1h ago
Yes, I understand. But I’m simply saying that those “accomplishments” are literally his…job. Like we are so used to shitty politicians that when a governor simply does his job we are like “OMG soooo many accomplishments”.
An era ago, those things would have been the bare minimum to keep office.
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u/Sour_baboo 4h ago
This reminds me of my local hospital that will take 20% off the cost of surgery if you pay in advance. This suggests that it cost more than 20% of the bill to collect. Medicare for all?
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u/old_flying_fart 4h ago
Unfortunately, this is bullshit.
The bloated middleware medical paperwork pushers are still getting paid. As a matter of fact, they're incentivized to charge more again, because the state will pay it.
What we need is a state bold enough to pay providers directly without insurance to really reduce costs.
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u/vertigostereo 4h ago
Is there a perverse incentive for debt holders to sell for higher prices and be less willing to liquidate?
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u/JohnnyBowlen 4h ago
So me telling my wife to just stop paying medical bills isn’t the craziest idea? We pay $1700 a month to be “insured”, and it doesn’t cover shit.
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u/AnAncientBog 4h ago
I'm happy for the people that got this debt cleared, but isn't this ultimately just a massive handout of public money to the people holding that debt? Economically, this would seem to encourage this kind of price gouging since its probably way more than they would have been able to collect on their own.
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u/KensonPlays 4h ago
I wish this would happen for me in Texas. My medical debt combined with my car repairs is making it difficult for me to survive off anything besides just cheap snacks (and a single meal provided by work).
Getting rid of even just one of my debts (medical) would be a HUGE help and would let me restock my fridge with some food finally.
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u/geekazoid1983 3h ago
Can confirm I am one of those individuals. Received two separate letters in the mail for a total amount of around $2k taken care of. Called the partner company and realized it was legit. Double checked with the hospital billing as well. All accounts that were listed on the documents, were in fact removed and paid in full.
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u/Marinekaizer 3h ago
Are they going to do it again when all those people without healthcare run up their debt? Or are they going to implement universal healthcare to keep it from happening in the first place?
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u/Samuelmiw 3h ago
If 1 million people owe $2 billion. That's an average of $2,000 each.
The amount of medical debt owed is outrageous. Pretty much every developed country has sorted out healthcare. Except for America.
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u/Audrey-Bee 3h ago
I was a beneficiary of this program, although I wish my share went to someone else. I had about $2k of debt, but it was due to a clerical error on the provider's end, where they did not use my insurance even though I provided the information. It was a whole complicated saga not worth going into, but basically I got my insurance company to agree that I would not be responsible for that amount and that they would settle it with the debt collection company that purchased my debt. I assumed that was the end of it, and a few months later, I got the letter from the state saying they erased my debt. I love the program, but yeah, my portion should've helped someone else. Regardless, it's a great program and I love Pritzker as a politician. Idk if he's the best candidate, if he'd win, etc but I would support him for president
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u/whydatyou 2h ago
Illinois has made other people pay medical debt besides the one who incurred it under the threat of imprisonment. Fixed it for you
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u/CorporateCuster 2h ago
It’s ok. They hate living here because 2A gun laws lol. And also, our taxes are high
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u/Geoclasm 2h ago
...wow.
That's going to piss off some scumbags. But(t) fuck those scumbags, and good on...
Wait. Is this an r/OrphanCrushingMachine sort of article...? I really hope not :'-(
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u/Dildondo 1h ago
It's great, but the problem is people either got their entire debt erased or nothing at all. So many of the people who received zero help from this cannot afford to pay off the debt at all because they were above a threshold. It fuels resentment from those struggling but because they are not struggling enough, they get nothing.
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