December 5, 2025 • 18 mins
Scott is joined by Ohio Rep Michele Grim about how the Assembly plans to tackle the issue of individual medical debt.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't want to be in American.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Scott's long show back on seven hundred WLW fun fat.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Here's a fun fact to start your busy day.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The amount of money that we spend in healthcare in
the United States has tripled since two thousand, So in
less than a quarter century, less than twenty five years,
the amount of money we spend on healthcare has tripled,
So one point four trillion to five trillion, pretty close
to triple. Right in the fall, the city of Cincinnati
gave money to wipe up help wipeout medical debt. Kind
(00:32):
of a controversial story, but that was done just a
few months ago as a matter of fact. So next up, though,
state wide, is Ohio's Medical Debt Fairness Act.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What is that? Well?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Ohio Representative Michelle Grimm out of Toledo, out of the
Glass Cities here, she has a sponsor of House Bill
two fifty seven.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Michelle, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm great? How are you, Scott?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm doing fine? All is well in the Glass City?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I presume, yeah, all as well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
All right?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I had I think Gary Jeff Walker, one of our
guys at work here was having through Toledo, was thinking
to me, so I stopped and had a Pacos honky dog.
And let me tell you something, if you're passing through
child to stop at Tony Paco's and get some chili,
get a honky dog, much different than Cincinnati style, but
pleasing none the loss. All right, So medical debt has
I think it's the still the leading source and has
(01:17):
been for a while leading source on paid bills and
credit reports for a long time now. In medical debt's
like sixty percent of consumer debt on credit reports, which
is incredible. So that those that's the rail that we're
facing here. So what does House Bill two fifty seven do?
What's your proposal to do? Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
So House Bill two fifty seven would do three key things.
It would prohibit hospitals debt collectors from reporting on credit reports,
It would ban wage gurnishment, and it would cap interest
of medical debt ode to three percent, because right now
(01:56):
we have a statutory eight percent interest, so that would
cap that at three percent.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, So let's start with a three percent medical to
the interest that you would pay right now on any
medical bill, certainly higher than three percent, and that keeps
up with inflation, presumably tied to maybe tied to inflation
here but typically how much of that debt? Are we
talking about howmuch should people just pay an interest on
a medical debt?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I you know, I think that's hard to gauge,
but I would say that the average person has about
the average person has medical debt has about twelve hundred dollars,
and while we don't report under five hundred dollars and
credit reports right now, that's taking away about the majority
(02:46):
of people who have medical debt and not giving them
a chance to repair their credit or purchase a home
or even get a job, because credit reports are they
continder people getting a job or getting an apartment or
(03:09):
getting a mortgage. So so that that leads a lot
of people out.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well getting getting getting insurance for that metal like car
insurance for example.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Everybody pulls your credit report now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
For sure. And so our bill would prohibit any type
of credit reporting and medical debt.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
All right, So on that one of the one of
the complaints you hear from the debt collection industry, which
I can't imagine a lot of people signing with the
debt collection industry, but it says, hey, listen, you're essentially
encouraging people to be dead beats Basically, what they're saying
is that if you take a constant consequences away from
people for non payment, that's going to lead the higher
healthcare costs for everyone because people look at it going, well,
(03:49):
I don't have to pay if the government's going to
and you know there's a moral hazard there obviously too,
And that's that's the problem with universal healthcare is you know, well,
people just simply go to the emergent if I don't
have to pay for it all over use.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
If that's a.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Theory, so you would still have to pay your bills,
of course, because it would just not be on your
credit report. But I would also argue that there's been
studies that said medical debt is a poor indicator of
paying other types of credit. So if you had credit cards,
(04:23):
or paying your mortgage, or paying your light bill, your
electric bill, but if you have medical debt, that's a
poor indicator whether you're going to pay other debts back.
And people do want to pay off their medical bills.
Medical bills can be medical debt can be embarrassing, but
it's not their fault. It's really a fault of a
(04:46):
broken system. It's not a debt of luxury. It is
a debt of necessity. So that's what I would argue back,
is that people people do want to pay their bills back,
and putting these creditory packs practices in place hinders a
lot of people from doing that.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
In that regard, Michelle Grim, is there a means test
or income requirement? I mean, you know, it sounds all
long good that people do want to pay their debts
off generally speaking, But how do we separate people who
generally can't afford to pay versus those who simply say
I'm not going to pay or choose not to pay.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So I think that there when you look at the studies,
it's a lot of people who cannot afford to pay,
a lot of people do want to pay their bills,
but they simply can't afford it. There they're choosing between
putting food on the table, or paying their their electric bill,
(05:40):
or paying their mortgage, or paying their medical debt off.
So it's it is a lot of people who don't
have any savings or anything like that. A lot of
people don't have a thousand dollars for an emergency, and
that's why we're putting people in a bind with medical debt.
But we want to help people.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, yeah, this is Michelle Grim she's out of Toledo
House Bill two fifty seven. She's co sponsoring this one
to help people with medical debt, because one in three
Ohio ons carries some sort of medical debts. The number
one cause of bankrow, I think with the top two
cost of bankruptcy in the United States, but one drives
the other. Job blessness would be number one, and health
(06:20):
insurance bankruptcy is another one, and I think those two
go hand in hand because for a lot of people,
their jobs and healthcare tied together, which is part of
the problem. This would limit medical interest to what you say,
three percent a year. You can't guarn someone's wages for
medical debt collection, and hospitals and providers can't report medical
debt to credit agencies right now. And I think in
(06:41):
the last few years were reformed. It used to be,
I believe Michelle, unpaid medical bills were kicked over to
credit reporting agencies after like sixty or one hundred and
twenty days, and now it's a full year. Correct, correct, Yeah, So,
I mean even the credit industry has said, hey, you know,
we've got to got we got to ease back a
little bit here maan after a fully. Now does that
mean that people aren't making any payments whatsoever? If you
(07:03):
pay a little bit of money, does that keep you
from being reported to credit agencies? How does that work?
Or is that with this what two fifty seven seeks
to do.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So I think it depends. I think typically I think
if you're making payments that it would not be reported.
But I think in some instances you will see reports
that like people are making payments or maybe they fell
behind so and you know what I was talking about before,
they maybe sell behind one or two months and then
(07:33):
it gets reported on the credit report. So you know,
the system isn't really fair for consumers, and we want
to make it a little fair for people to get ahead,
for people to have a fighting chance. So you know,
I think that a lot of the arguments against this
(07:55):
too is around wage garnishments. I do want your listeners
to look up this article from Signal, Ohio about a
rural hospital in Logan County who has who has sued
twenty seven hundred patients in the last two years. Yeah,
(08:17):
and a lot of their a lot of the judgments
in court were wage garnishment. So people are paying up
to twenty five percent of their They're getting up to
twenty five percent of their checks garnished their payroll checks,
plus they're paying that eight percent interest, So.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
That's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I think most people listening, Wow, Okay, I'm not quite
sure I want the state of medical bills. At the
same time, like, how am I supposed to live if
i'm that's almost like child support.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
In child support, you had a consciousution have a child,
and you provide for your child. That's a different matter
than Hey, I just got sick, and maybe I got
sick because this is something at work or I feil
or something along the way. All of us at some
point or another. And now that we're taking a quarter
of your wages, that seems confiscate. How can you live
on the other seventy five percent?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And I can? I go back to what you just said.
So we're not again, we're not suggesting that the state
is paying medical bills. We're just saying we're going to
have these parameters of credit reports, wage guarnership, and interest rates.
So I just wanted to kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was I was referring more to what we did
in Cincinnati. Not long ago when council approved a million
and a half to a nonprofit that collected money and
wiped out about two hundred twenty million debt for twelve
thousand Cincinnatians and just buying the debt from the credit companies.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So I actually did that in Toledo about it'll be
three years ago, So Toledo kind of led the way
for cities. County was the first one, and so we
actually eliminated debt for about one hundred and twelve thousand
(10:03):
people around the region, including forty three thousand Lucas County residents.
And that no profit is undue medical debt. They do
great work, so and they negotiate directly with the hospitals.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So yeah, I contemplate that one because this is outside
of your scope as a state lawmaker, Michelle Grimm. But
the beef I have, like, for example, the government shutdown
over Obamacare and the ACA. You know, we're fighting at
our subsidy is the problem. It's not not healthcare. We're
so we're taking money from a group of taxpayers and
(10:37):
transferring it to another money of ped taxpayers without addressing
the problem in Congress for a long time, and we
would need all this stuff, if we would just reform
healthcare properly instead of having Democrats and Republicans fight each
other and do this insane stuff. I mean, Obamacare, it
makes it doesn't make it affordable. It's extremely expensive. Is
the problem. Afford is a misnomer. You're just you're you're
(11:00):
subsidizing something that's extremely expended. Let's figure out why we're
paying you know, three times more than most double what
most countries are for less health care.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, I would absolutely agree with that, and
I would I would say that a lot of people
in the healthcare space looking at the core problem, which
is our broken healthcare system, which it would absolutely agree
with that. And so I know we're here not to
(11:30):
talk about and do. But what what they're able to
do is they're able to purchase that pennies on the
dollar from hospital systems or second second, the secondary market.
But you know, people do uh? People have you know?
I've gotten I've gotten a lot of emails and a
lot of calls saying like I got a letter from
New Medical Debt, thank you very much. It really did
(11:53):
help a lot of people. But yes, you are correct,
and does not solve the brokenhair health care system, right,
and you know that's what you know, that's what we
need to keep working on. And so bills like House
Bill to fifty seven, they make the rules a little
bit fairer, but we still have a lot of work
(12:15):
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, you mentioned Logan County, Small and Logan Counties right
in our listing areas in the I think around the
where the Armstrong Space, you know, Wapa Canata up that way. Yeah, yeah,
about an hour an hour and a half hour forty
minutes from us here in Cincinnati, So Logan County, pastor,
and if you're going up north to Toledo, for example,
so in that county you said that, you know, they're
garnishing people's wages and like, and I kind of get
(12:37):
that in a sense is I don't know if they're
being confiscatory and it's you know, the evil capitalists twirling
his mustache in the corner lighting a cigar with one
thousand dollars bills. But in some sense, hospitals, and especially
rural hospitals are under struggles right now. We're having a
number of them close as a result of the healthcare
system which is not going to serve anyone in those areas.
(12:57):
How do you ensure they still get fair payment while
protecting the patients from excessive debt collection practices.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So I think what's gonna hurt our rule hospitals in
the long run is the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare
and also the increased costs because the ACA seven, the
subsidies may go away. So that's going to be really
where they're going to hit get hit the hardest. It's
(13:25):
not gonna be because they can't put it on our
current report or they can't garnish wages. A lot of
hospitals actually don't garnish wages or soothe their patients. This
is actually a pretty aggressive practice with this one hospital
because actually a lot of hospitals don't do that. They
you know, tend to try to work with the patient
or they or they send it to debt collections. Right,
(13:47):
but not every but not every hospital does that. Couples
of hospitals in the area in the state have said
that this doesn't this build hos those two fifty seven
doesn't really affect us. It doesn't affect our operations. So
but so yeah, that's what I would say.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is that maybe it's just maybe more like the rural
I mean, because you look at rural areas that are
losing population and they've got one hospital or clinic and
now you've got fewer people in there. So I get
the model. Whereas in Cincinnati and Dayton, Toledo, in bigger cities,
you can absorb those costs, but better you have more
people to draw.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, but again I think that what's coming down the
pipeline here is our cuts to Medicaid and our cuts
to Medicare and the ac stubsidies going away. It is
really going to hurt our rural hospital systems. Not prohibiting
putting medical debta credible.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's a house built two fifty seven, and medical debt
is a crisis in America, has been for a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Makes up about sixty percent of our consumer debt.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
This would limit the interest on that to three percent
of here capita three percent interest, ban age garnishment for
medical debt collections, and stop hospitals and providers and debt
collectors from reporting that debt to credit agencies provided you're
paying something. I mean, isn't it safe to say in
the end, most hospitals, hey listen, I owe all this
money and here's what I make. We've got to work
(15:17):
on a payment plan, whether it's you know, twenty bucks
a month or something like that, which you'll never touch it,
but at least I'm giving you something. Does that satisfy
most hospitals if put the effort in.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So, you know, I think I can't speak for the
hospital systems, but certainly a lot of the hospital systems
do you work out payment plans. They also offer charity care options.
People can ask for charity care options, and I would
really encourage folks to do that kind of look at
(15:48):
all of your options. So if you if you do
have medical debt or bills you can't pay, ask questions.
So this is kind of my call to action for everybody.
Ask questions. Ask you know, hey why was I charged this?
Or can I set up a paynut plan? Or hey
I can't afford this right now? So I would say
keep you know, negotiate with the hospital or the deck
(16:12):
collection agency, and just make sure that you're uh negotiating
that way, because you you do have negotiating power and
you can work on uh making sure that you you
do you do keep up with your bills and you
don't fall behind and it does go on your credit
report until you know, until just tass so so so yeah,
(16:37):
I would say, like, you know, just work, you know, talk,
talk to the hospitals, look at your medical bills, ask questions,
and you know the hospitals should be happy to work
with you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Right, Uh, Michelle that you have biopartisan sport for those
are bipartiination.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, it touches every So my my joint
sponsor is Representative Jeane Schmidt. So uh, I you know,
it touches everybody's district, everybody's district. Yeah, so you know,
it's not just rural districts or urban districts or suburban districts.
(17:15):
Is everybody's district and everybody everybody knows someone who has
had medical debt or has medical debt currently. And you know, again,
we want to make sure that the playing field is
a little fair for people, and we want to make
sure people get ahead and not keep them down. And
I think the House will two fifty seven. Uh, while
(17:36):
it doesn't fix everything, it makes us a little bit
closer to uh a fair system.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Geene Schmid in the sixty second district, so you know,
fairly rural area is there too, Claremont County. So uh
it has urban and rural support and and it's bipartisan,
which I like a lot. And it also helps people
and it doesn't seem to unfairly uh insteadive by someone
not to pay their bills, which I like. She is
Michelle Grimm, Democrat at Toledo Hospital fifty spence two fifty seven,
(18:06):
along with Janie Schmidt here in Claremont County, and I
wish all the best, thanks again for coming on the show.
Thank you Scott so too long didn't read. We have
a government buying back medical debt from pennies on the
Dottarm to discharge that debt for Ohioans, while the other
side of the government causes our healthcare insurance to be
so cost prohibitive people go into debt for it. One hand,
(18:30):
I don't know breaking the other so to speak. I
don't know what to make of this. Just address the
core issue about that, not at the state level, but
at the federal level. We've got a news update. We'll
switch it up Bengals at Buffalo this weekend. Austin Elmore
here from ESPN fifteen thirty. We'll talk about that and
Kyle Schwarber Watch as well on seven hundred w weld
Don't want to be in American.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Scott's long show back on seven hundred WLW fun fat.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Here's a fun fact to start your busy day.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The amount of money that we spend in healthcare in
the United States has tripled since two thousand, So in
less than a quarter century, less than twenty five years,
the amount of money we spend on healthcare has tripled,
So one point four trillion to five trillion, pretty close
to triple. Right in the fall, the city of Cincinnati
gave money to wipe up help wipeout medical debt. Kind
(00:32):
of a controversial story, but that was done just a
few months ago as a matter of fact. So next up, though,
state wide, is Ohio's Medical Debt Fairness Act.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What is that? Well?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Ohio Representative Michelle Grimm out of Toledo, out of the
Glass Cities here, she has a sponsor of House Bill
two fifty seven.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Michelle, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm great? How are you, Scott?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm doing fine? All is well in the Glass City?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I presume, yeah, all as well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
All right?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I had I think Gary Jeff Walker, one of our
guys at work here was having through Toledo, was thinking
to me, so I stopped and had a Pacos honky dog.
And let me tell you something, if you're passing through
child to stop at Tony Paco's and get some chili,
get a honky dog, much different than Cincinnati style, but
pleasing none the loss. All right, So medical debt has
I think it's the still the leading source and has
(01:17):
been for a while leading source on paid bills and
credit reports for a long time now. In medical debt's
like sixty percent of consumer debt on credit reports, which
is incredible. So that those that's the rail that we're
facing here. So what does House Bill two fifty seven do?
What's your proposal to do? Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
So House Bill two fifty seven would do three key things.
It would prohibit hospitals debt collectors from reporting on credit reports,
It would ban wage gurnishment, and it would cap interest
of medical debt ode to three percent, because right now
(01:56):
we have a statutory eight percent interest, so that would
cap that at three percent.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, So let's start with a three percent medical to
the interest that you would pay right now on any
medical bill, certainly higher than three percent, and that keeps
up with inflation, presumably tied to maybe tied to inflation
here but typically how much of that debt? Are we
talking about howmuch should people just pay an interest on
a medical debt?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I you know, I think that's hard to gauge,
but I would say that the average person has about
the average person has medical debt has about twelve hundred dollars,
and while we don't report under five hundred dollars and
credit reports right now, that's taking away about the majority
(02:46):
of people who have medical debt and not giving them
a chance to repair their credit or purchase a home
or even get a job, because credit reports are they
continder people getting a job or getting an apartment or
(03:09):
getting a mortgage. So so that that leads a lot
of people out.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well getting getting getting insurance for that metal like car
insurance for example.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Everybody pulls your credit report now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
For sure. And so our bill would prohibit any type
of credit reporting and medical debt.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
All right, So on that one of the one of
the complaints you hear from the debt collection industry, which
I can't imagine a lot of people signing with the
debt collection industry, but it says, hey, listen, you're essentially
encouraging people to be dead beats Basically, what they're saying
is that if you take a constant consequences away from
people for non payment, that's going to lead the higher
healthcare costs for everyone because people look at it going, well,
(03:49):
I don't have to pay if the government's going to
and you know there's a moral hazard there obviously too,
And that's that's the problem with universal healthcare is you know, well,
people just simply go to the emergent if I don't
have to pay for it all over use.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
If that's a.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Theory, so you would still have to pay your bills,
of course, because it would just not be on your
credit report. But I would also argue that there's been
studies that said medical debt is a poor indicator of
paying other types of credit. So if you had credit cards,
(04:23):
or paying your mortgage, or paying your light bill, your
electric bill, but if you have medical debt, that's a
poor indicator whether you're going to pay other debts back.
And people do want to pay off their medical bills.
Medical bills can be medical debt can be embarrassing, but
it's not their fault. It's really a fault of a
(04:46):
broken system. It's not a debt of luxury. It is
a debt of necessity. So that's what I would argue back,
is that people people do want to pay their bills back,
and putting these creditory packs practices in place hinders a
lot of people from doing that.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
In that regard, Michelle Grim, is there a means test
or income requirement? I mean, you know, it sounds all
long good that people do want to pay their debts
off generally speaking, But how do we separate people who
generally can't afford to pay versus those who simply say
I'm not going to pay or choose not to pay.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So I think that there when you look at the studies,
it's a lot of people who cannot afford to pay,
a lot of people do want to pay their bills,
but they simply can't afford it. There they're choosing between
putting food on the table, or paying their their electric bill,
(05:40):
or paying their mortgage, or paying their medical debt off.
So it's it is a lot of people who don't
have any savings or anything like that. A lot of
people don't have a thousand dollars for an emergency, and
that's why we're putting people in a bind with medical debt.
But we want to help people.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, yeah, this is Michelle Grim she's out of Toledo
House Bill two fifty seven. She's co sponsoring this one
to help people with medical debt, because one in three
Ohio ons carries some sort of medical debts. The number
one cause of bankrow, I think with the top two
cost of bankruptcy in the United States, but one drives
the other. Job blessness would be number one, and health
(06:20):
insurance bankruptcy is another one, and I think those two
go hand in hand because for a lot of people,
their jobs and healthcare tied together, which is part of
the problem. This would limit medical interest to what you say,
three percent a year. You can't guarn someone's wages for
medical debt collection, and hospitals and providers can't report medical
debt to credit agencies right now. And I think in
(06:41):
the last few years were reformed. It used to be,
I believe Michelle, unpaid medical bills were kicked over to
credit reporting agencies after like sixty or one hundred and
twenty days, and now it's a full year. Correct, correct, Yeah, So,
I mean even the credit industry has said, hey, you know,
we've got to got we got to ease back a
little bit here maan after a fully. Now does that
mean that people aren't making any payments whatsoever? If you
(07:03):
pay a little bit of money, does that keep you
from being reported to credit agencies? How does that work?
Or is that with this what two fifty seven seeks
to do.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So I think it depends. I think typically I think
if you're making payments that it would not be reported.
But I think in some instances you will see reports
that like people are making payments or maybe they fell
behind so and you know what I was talking about before,
they maybe sell behind one or two months and then
(07:33):
it gets reported on the credit report. So you know,
the system isn't really fair for consumers, and we want
to make it a little fair for people to get ahead,
for people to have a fighting chance. So you know,
I think that a lot of the arguments against this
(07:55):
too is around wage garnishments. I do want your listeners
to look up this article from Signal, Ohio about a
rural hospital in Logan County who has who has sued
twenty seven hundred patients in the last two years. Yeah,
(08:17):
and a lot of their a lot of the judgments
in court were wage garnishment. So people are paying up
to twenty five percent of their They're getting up to
twenty five percent of their checks garnished their payroll checks,
plus they're paying that eight percent interest, So.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
That's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I think most people listening, Wow, Okay, I'm not quite
sure I want the state of medical bills. At the
same time, like, how am I supposed to live if
i'm that's almost like child support.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
In child support, you had a consciousution have a child,
and you provide for your child. That's a different matter
than Hey, I just got sick, and maybe I got
sick because this is something at work or I feil
or something along the way. All of us at some
point or another. And now that we're taking a quarter
of your wages, that seems confiscate. How can you live
on the other seventy five percent?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And I can? I go back to what you just said.
So we're not again, we're not suggesting that the state
is paying medical bills. We're just saying we're going to
have these parameters of credit reports, wage guarnership, and interest rates.
So I just wanted to kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was I was referring more to what we did
in Cincinnati. Not long ago when council approved a million
and a half to a nonprofit that collected money and
wiped out about two hundred twenty million debt for twelve
thousand Cincinnatians and just buying the debt from the credit companies.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
So I actually did that in Toledo about it'll be
three years ago, So Toledo kind of led the way
for cities. County was the first one, and so we
actually eliminated debt for about one hundred and twelve thousand
(10:03):
people around the region, including forty three thousand Lucas County residents.
And that no profit is undue medical debt. They do
great work, so and they negotiate directly with the hospitals.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So yeah, I contemplate that one because this is outside
of your scope as a state lawmaker, Michelle Grimm. But
the beef I have, like, for example, the government shutdown
over Obamacare and the ACA. You know, we're fighting at
our subsidy is the problem. It's not not healthcare. We're
so we're taking money from a group of taxpayers and
(10:37):
transferring it to another money of ped taxpayers without addressing
the problem in Congress for a long time, and we
would need all this stuff, if we would just reform
healthcare properly instead of having Democrats and Republicans fight each
other and do this insane stuff. I mean, Obamacare, it
makes it doesn't make it affordable. It's extremely expensive. Is
the problem. Afford is a misnomer. You're just you're you're
(11:00):
subsidizing something that's extremely expended. Let's figure out why we're
paying you know, three times more than most double what
most countries are for less health care.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, no, I would absolutely agree with that, and
I would I would say that a lot of people
in the healthcare space looking at the core problem, which
is our broken healthcare system, which it would absolutely agree
with that. And so I know we're here not to
(11:30):
talk about and do. But what what they're able to
do is they're able to purchase that pennies on the
dollar from hospital systems or second second, the secondary market.
But you know, people do uh? People have you know?
I've gotten I've gotten a lot of emails and a
lot of calls saying like I got a letter from
New Medical Debt, thank you very much. It really did
(11:53):
help a lot of people. But yes, you are correct,
and does not solve the brokenhair health care system, right,
and you know that's what you know, that's what we
need to keep working on. And so bills like House
Bill to fifty seven, they make the rules a little
bit fairer, but we still have a lot of work
(12:15):
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, you mentioned Logan County, Small and Logan Counties right
in our listing areas in the I think around the
where the Armstrong Space, you know, Wapa Canata up that way. Yeah, yeah,
about an hour an hour and a half hour forty
minutes from us here in Cincinnati, So Logan County, pastor,
and if you're going up north to Toledo, for example,
so in that county you said that, you know, they're
garnishing people's wages and like, and I kind of get
(12:37):
that in a sense is I don't know if they're
being confiscatory and it's you know, the evil capitalists twirling
his mustache in the corner lighting a cigar with one
thousand dollars bills. But in some sense, hospitals, and especially
rural hospitals are under struggles right now. We're having a
number of them close as a result of the healthcare
system which is not going to serve anyone in those areas.
(12:57):
How do you ensure they still get fair payment while
protecting the patients from excessive debt collection practices.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So I think what's gonna hurt our rule hospitals in
the long run is the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare
and also the increased costs because the ACA seven, the
subsidies may go away. So that's going to be really
where they're going to hit get hit the hardest. It's
(13:25):
not gonna be because they can't put it on our
current report or they can't garnish wages. A lot of
hospitals actually don't garnish wages or soothe their patients. This
is actually a pretty aggressive practice with this one hospital
because actually a lot of hospitals don't do that. They
you know, tend to try to work with the patient
or they or they send it to debt collections. Right,
(13:47):
but not every but not every hospital does that. Couples
of hospitals in the area in the state have said
that this doesn't this build hos those two fifty seven
doesn't really affect us. It doesn't affect our operations. So
but so yeah, that's what I would say.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is that maybe it's just maybe more like the rural
I mean, because you look at rural areas that are
losing population and they've got one hospital or clinic and
now you've got fewer people in there. So I get
the model. Whereas in Cincinnati and Dayton, Toledo, in bigger cities,
you can absorb those costs, but better you have more
people to draw.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, but again I think that what's coming down the
pipeline here is our cuts to Medicaid and our cuts
to Medicare and the ac stubsidies going away. It is
really going to hurt our rural hospital systems. Not prohibiting
putting medical debta credible.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's a house built two fifty seven, and medical debt
is a crisis in America, has been for a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Makes up about sixty percent of our consumer debt.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
This would limit the interest on that to three percent
of here capita three percent interest, ban age garnishment for
medical debt collections, and stop hospitals and providers and debt
collectors from reporting that debt to credit agencies provided you're
paying something. I mean, isn't it safe to say in
the end, most hospitals, hey listen, I owe all this
money and here's what I make. We've got to work
(15:17):
on a payment plan, whether it's you know, twenty bucks
a month or something like that, which you'll never touch it,
but at least I'm giving you something. Does that satisfy
most hospitals if put the effort in.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So, you know, I think I can't speak for the
hospital systems, but certainly a lot of the hospital systems
do you work out payment plans. They also offer charity care options.
People can ask for charity care options, and I would
really encourage folks to do that kind of look at
(15:48):
all of your options. So if you if you do
have medical debt or bills you can't pay, ask questions.
So this is kind of my call to action for everybody.
Ask questions. Ask you know, hey why was I charged this?
Or can I set up a paynut plan? Or hey
I can't afford this right now? So I would say
keep you know, negotiate with the hospital or the deck
(16:12):
collection agency, and just make sure that you're uh negotiating
that way, because you you do have negotiating power and
you can work on uh making sure that you you
do you do keep up with your bills and you
don't fall behind and it does go on your credit
report until you know, until just tass so so so yeah,
(16:37):
I would say, like, you know, just work, you know, talk,
talk to the hospitals, look at your medical bills, ask questions,
and you know the hospitals should be happy to work
with you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Right, Uh, Michelle that you have biopartisan sport for those
are bipartiination.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, it touches every So my my joint
sponsor is Representative Jeane Schmidt. So uh, I you know,
it touches everybody's district, everybody's district. Yeah, so you know,
it's not just rural districts or urban districts or suburban districts.
(17:15):
Is everybody's district and everybody everybody knows someone who has
had medical debt or has medical debt currently. And you know, again,
we want to make sure that the playing field is
a little fair for people, and we want to make
sure people get ahead and not keep them down. And
I think the House will two fifty seven. Uh, while
(17:36):
it doesn't fix everything, it makes us a little bit
closer to uh a fair system.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Geene Schmid in the sixty second district, so you know,
fairly rural area is there too, Claremont County. So uh
it has urban and rural support and and it's bipartisan,
which I like a lot. And it also helps people
and it doesn't seem to unfairly uh insteadive by someone
not to pay their bills, which I like. She is
Michelle Grimm, Democrat at Toledo Hospital fifty spence two fifty seven,
(18:06):
along with Janie Schmidt here in Claremont County, and I
wish all the best, thanks again for coming on the show.
Thank you Scott so too long didn't read. We have
a government buying back medical debt from pennies on the
Dottarm to discharge that debt for Ohioans, while the other
side of the government causes our healthcare insurance to be
so cost prohibitive people go into debt for it. One hand,
(18:30):
I don't know breaking the other so to speak. I
don't know what to make of this. Just address the
core issue about that, not at the state level, but
at the federal level. We've got a news update. We'll
switch it up Bengals at Buffalo this weekend. Austin Elmore
here from ESPN fifteen thirty. We'll talk about that and
Kyle Schwarber Watch as well on seven hundred w weld
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