To appreciate this statement, one must first wade through the complexity of Medicare accounting. Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) is funded with a tax of 2.90% total on all payroll income, plus an extra .90% on income that exceeds $250,000. For the first thirty years of Medicare, the annual receipts from payroll taxes exceeded the…

A little-known area of financial abuse involves “structured settlement” annuities.  A structured settlement is often used in compensation for injuries or accidents – i.e. car crashes, medical malpractice, and class-action lawsuits. The victim is set up to receive their money through periodic payments –this is the ‘structure’. For example, the recipient might get $2,000 a…

Student loan forgiveness can be quite confusing.  Here is a brief overview: Back in 2020, the Biden administration announced a plan to forgive $10,000 per debtor, for virtually the entire student debtor population – about 44 million borrowers. (The amount would be $20,000 if a student had been poor enough originally to also receive a…

Readers may remember the controversial 2015 shooting of Walter Scott, a 50-year-old black man,  in South Carolina.  A policeman was convicted for murder in the case, after a video surfaced showing him shooting Scott from behind. But few people ask: “Why was Walter Scott running away?” The sad explanation: child support. Scott had been repeatedly sent…

2023 was overall a good year for student debtors, even with some legislative reversals. However, borrowers are still receiving phone calls, emails, letters, and/or texts offering them relief from their federal student loans, or warning them that student loan forgiveness programs would end soon.  Usually, the so-called student loan debt relief companies offering these types of services…

If you are concerned about medical debt, you have to start with the hospitals. Of the six million Americans who owe more than $5,000 in medical debt, 72 percent attribute their debt to bills from acute care, such as a single hospital stay or treatment for an accident.  There is a movement to limit medical…

A Kaiser Foundation survey on 9-29-23 makes it clear– we are seeing a large increase in insurance claim denials.  When insurance companies deny claims, patients eventually pay the price. These bills can easily turn into medical debt, with troubling consequences; people take steps that put their health at further risk.    1 in 7 people with medical…

A non-profit firm called Upsolve enables many bankruptcy filers to pay nothing in legal fees. Here’s the background: Chapter 7 bankruptcy attorneys usually require their clients to pay in full before filing the case. You cannot blame them…if a lawyer does not collect their fees up front, their bill could later be discharged along with…