I will just chip in to point out the obvious: the US healthcare is the teetering house of cards etc etc etc. Many other countries managed this just fine, so the question is, why not also in the US? Follow the money: who gains out of this chaos?

I’m not very educated on this topic. Who is gaining out of the chaos?

Insurance companies. Unneeded middle men.

My wife had a decent chunk of medical debt when we got married which was long before COVID. Even at that time medical debt didn't count terribly against her. Maybe a 10 pt drop in her score. And eventually the debt fell off her credit.

So did she/the two of you pay it eventually? If not, were there any collection efforts/judgments/garnishments or anything like that?

Simply walking away from medical debt if there is only a minor impact on credit score seems like a decent option if not.

This is one of many reasons why hospitals charge so much. Medical debt is extremely difficult to actually collect because refusing to pay has basically no consequences. Hospitals have to eat those costs and make up for it by squeezing patients who do pay for as much as possible.

I did the same thing with an ER bill I couldn't afford a while back. I just never paid it and suffered virtually no consequences.

I have heard of hospital insiders giving precisely such advice: Don't even start to pay or they will hound you as if you can.

But they still have the debt, right? It's great if it's not counted against them, but to say "it doesn't matter" seems unfair - won't they still be hounded by collections agencies and potentially sued?

That sounds like a solid improvement. It really is a different class of market interaction.

I don't know why people see this as a good thing. Healthcare is expensive for precisely the reason that people skip out on paying their debt. Now it's harder to collect so what's the result? Costs are going to go up to subsidize the increased cost of collection.

Non payment is a moderate expense, at least according to hospitals themselves: https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2020-01-06-fact-sheet-uncomp...