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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   31006 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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young ghetto boy ... virulent invasive species that will leave the land barren.

Whelp that's enough of TheMotte for me today.

Anyway, my bigger concern in the US is actually having a healthcare crisis with my child and becoming destitute, especially since I've worked diligently to create a life of relative comfort compared to my very blue collar ancestors.

Anyway, my bigger concern in the US is actually having a healthcare crisis with my child and becoming destitute,

How do you envision that happening?

Whelp that's enough of TheMotte for me today.

Would you feel better to know that I know an affluent white couple having the exact same terrible experience with a white child adopted from methbilly parents? No racial angle at all (the adoptive father is even from a similar borderer-descended background as the child). Yet nurture is still failing horribly and it's a coin toss whether the kid ends up in prison by his late teens.

Did you know that if you get a giant hospital bill you can just negotiate it down by refusing to pay? I have relatives that have successfully done this- while also being people who pay sticker price with contractors and car dealers, it’s that easy.

Don’t worry so much about it.

Should've framed it more as "chronic, debilitating and high maintenance medical condition" than a single "medical event". Complaints about medical bankruptcy in America aren't because of MRIs for broken arms.

One can even negotiate down to $0 by the One Weird Trick of just not paying. Just like jiu-jistsu isn’t real, because you can just stand-up: hospital bills aren’t real, just don’t pay.

Although it’s likely one of those things that varies across states in the States, my recollection is that credit score treatment of delinquent medical bills tend to be more lenient, if medical bills make it in there in the first place (God forbid if you close a credit card, though).

It works even better if you’re a member of the underclass or an illegal immigrant, where your (or “your” for illegal immigrants) credit score likely doesn’t matter to you anyway. The costs of your hospital tabs will be passed on to those who pay their bills. Anarcho-tyranny, hospital bill edition.

Does it hit your credit score, or can you usually negotiate it down before it goes to creditors?

From the little I've seen of stories like this, it seems to go: "hospital hits you with incredibly huge bill, you go "nope", the insurance company goes "nope" and you get on to the special department the hospital has to negotiate "okay let's pay something reasonable", and only the honest and bewildered try to pay the incredibly huge bill" as hospitals will try and charge you for everything with the expectation that "nobody will really pay this, it's haggling time".

It does not hit your credit score.

Whelp that's enough of TheMotte for me today.

Do you have an actual argument against his position? Or did it just make you feel icky?

I disagree with a great many of @WhiningCoil’s takes, and with the often bilious way he expresses them, but in this case his metaphor strikes me as a fairly reasonable (and certainly within the bounds of discussion) extension of the metaphor you yourself supplied.

It's the emphasis on "invasive species" that's the icky bit; I had a similar gut reaction. Yes, yes, 13/52 and all, but that particular phrasing hits different.

I think you meant to respond to @Hoffmeister25 above.

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