You may be familiar with the liberal activist group known as Citizen Action. They have subgroups in every state of the nation and most of you have probably had one of their representatives knocking on your door or accosting you out on the street, asking you to sign a petition for some lefty cause and, most importantly, wanting cash donations. They have a particularly pernicious group in New York and they regularly flood the email inboxes of anyone who hasn’t remembered to block them. Their latest campaign seeks to expand on the national student loan relief project that’s been embraced by liberals in Washington. They are drumming up New Yorkers to demand that Governor Kathy Hochul put an end to medical debt. They apparently feel that she can wave a magic wand and make everyone’s medical bills disappear.
We envision a world where every New Yorker has the quality health care they need and the financial stability they deserve. It’s time to end medical debt and pass coverage for all to put us on a path to healthy, strong communities where every single person can thrive. The Governor has identified medical debt as an urgent health equity problem that needs to be solved. We need state legislators to take robust measures to ensure all New Yorkers, including immigrants, are protected from medical debt.
Everyone deserves affordable, accessible, culturally competent, and comprehensive health care and freedom from the burden of medical costs.
You can see all of the standard liberal buzzwords in this list of demands. They talk about “healthy, strong communities” and people “thriving.” It all sounds so sunny and positive, doesn’t it? Of course, they also specify that this total debt relief must apply to “immigrants,” as well. By which they mean illegal immigrants, of course. But they’ve chosen to leave the word “illegal” out of their brochures because it doesn’t poll well.
Addressing the main issue at hand here, I will be the first to agree that the cost of medical care in the United States is out of control and has been for some time. The medical industry is a mess, financially speaking, and far too many irregularities exist inside the system with almost no governmental oversight. Hospitals have frequently been caught charging different patients wildly different amounts of money for the same products and services based on whether or not they have medical insurance and how generous the policy is. That’s also a large driver of why insurance costs so much, by the way.
There is a reason for the glaring lack of government oversight I mentioned above. The healthcare industry in general spent more on lobbying during the last election cycle than any other industry, far outpacing the one that came in second. Big Pharma in particular dumped the most cash into the pockets of lawmakers. And what was the number one issue they were lobbying for? Stopping a cap on prescription drug prices. These people are not your friends and they have been showering money on candidates from both parties with equal abandon.
But with all of that said, this “plan” suffers from the same fatal flaws that Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness proposal contains. Once a debt is established, it doesn’t simply “go away” because some politician signs a piece of paper. (Unless that piece of paper is a check made out to the lender, of course.) It always winds up needing to be paid. These liberal debt “forgiveness” proposals simply shift the burden to the taxpayers, including the people who are being released from their repayment obligations.
That’s not a solution to the medical debt woes facing too many Americans. Prices need to be equalized, stabilized, and brought down wherever possible. And while it pains me to say it, that won’t happen without government oversight and regulation. The industry is clearly unable or more likely unwilling to regulate itself when there is so much money to be made.
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