How far is too far when collecting a debt?

[Joe]

Yeah, that's what Michael Moore's movie Sicko was about. How bad luck drove people with insurance into bankruptcy.

The ACA improved things, but the possibility of being impoverished by medical debt is still a reality. As long as people are dependent upon their employers for insurance, they are exposed by unemployment or a change in jobs to the possibility of exorbitant bills that aren't covered. The hospital chain featured in the article Sean linked charges outrageously for the services they provide, and they aren't the only one. The insured are protected from this thievery, but the under-insured and uninsured are billed 3 to 4 times what insurance will pay.

It creates an incentive for unscrupulous healthcare businesses to view these unfortunate folks as an opportunity for profit. We hear about the people who can't pay and had their wages garnished and homes taken away, but most pay over time, and are a lucrative source of income. It's a fucked up system, but the corruption of our government lets these criminals buy its support, so that their victims have no recourse or possibility of justice.

I don't know where this is going, but I suspect it's nowhere good.

BTW. 42's facts didn't check out. The sources he cited didn't back up what he claimed, and when I asked him about it (twice), he didn't respond. I posted the real info. I can dig it up again if you're interested.

[Hermit]

I dispute that this is taking the term 'violence' beyond its usual meaning.

The term that covers this is 'coercion'.

Then in this case coercion becomes a form of violence - a deliberate act intended to harm - ...

In which case debt collection is not classifiable under the rubric of "violence". While debt collections often do result in harm, that is not the intent. Knowing that an action results in harm is not synonymous with intending the action to be harmful.

[Hermit]

People freely choose to take out the loans. Remember, most of the people without insurance choose to have no insurance.

Invoking free will now?

[pErvinalia]

Invoking your face.

[Brian Peacock]

You can't let it lie can you?

And to preempt your reply, a point I've already made and which you haven't addressed, usury refers to interest on loans. Not exclusively to excessive levels of interest.

So you say.

...
"A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates OR other factors defined by a nation's laws." - Wiki

--- my bold

...
And even if it was solely excessive levels of interest, it still doesn't make loans of that type violence.

I never said that it did.

...
If I'd said that loaning people money was a deliberate act intended to harm in every instance you might have had an excellent point.

But I would consider a loan usurious when an arrangement unfairly favours or enriches a lender and is a detriment to the borrower's wellbeing. An no, I'm not saying that the hardship one might endure in paying back a loan is the same as the harm you might suffer in trying to service a debt the conditions of which you can never meet.

...
No stretching of the world violence can make it so.

I'm not stretching the world, or the word. I've said that I consider violence to be a deliberate act intended to cause harm.

And even further, you'd have to provide some evidence to suggest that significant portions of medical debt are subject to excessive/illegal levels of interest. Notwithstanding the first two points above.

Why? Because you've confused a proposition for a normative statement? For my part I think I've adequately explained when and how I think "debt is violence when it's usury" could hold true, in cases where people accrue unavoidable debts like expenses for immediate and necessary medical treatment and in circumstance where finance companies make a calculation that they're quids-in regardless of whether the borrower can service the debt or not. As I said earlier...

...
[T]he point doesn't rest on whether people service their loans but on what basis and under what conditions they are obliged to do so.

Medical bankruptcies account for over two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies in the US. Is that portion 'significant' enough for you? In the US, how would a bankrupt pay for the third round of chemo they need to stand a chance of seeing their kid's next birthday?

[pErvinalia]

You can't let it lie can you?

Why should I? You think you should get a free pass to make ridiculous statements? Talk about entitlement.

And to preempt your reply, a point I've already made and which you haven't addressed, usury refers to interest on loans. Not exclusively to excessive levels of interest.

So you say.

So the dictionary says.

...
"A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates OR other factors defined by a nation's laws." - Wiki

--- my bold

Your bold doesn't account for the fact that usury applies to ALL loans that are interest bearing.

...
And even if it was solely excessive levels of interest, it still doesn't make loans of that type violence.

I never said that it did.

FFS, I've quoted you numerous times saying EXACTLY that. What's your malfunction?

...
If I'd said that loaning people money was a deliberate act intended to harm in every instance you might have had an excellent point.

But I would consider a loan usurious when an arrangement unfairly favours or enriches a lender and is a detriment to the borrower's wellbeing.

You can consider it however you want. It still doesn't change the facts of the matter.

An no, I'm not saying that the hardship one might endure in paying back a loan is the same as the harm you might suffer in trying to service a debt the conditions of which you can never meet.

I've made the point to you already, a point you didn't address of course, that the vast majority of medical debts are serviced without default.

...
No stretching of the world violence can make it so.

I'm not stretching the world, or the word. I've said that I consider violence to be a deliberate act intended to cause harm.

And I've repeatedly made the point to you that loaning people money isn't a "deliberate act intended to cause them harm". Implying that it is is just ridiculous hyperbole.

And even further, you'd have to provide some evidence to suggest that significant portions of medical debt are subject to excessive/illegal levels of interest. Notwithstanding the first two points above.

Why?

Because that's the definition of "usury" that you'd have to be operating under to even begin to make this retarded line of reasoning.

Because you've confused a proposition for a normative statement? For my part I think I've adequately explained when and how I think "debt is violence when it's usury" could hold true, in cases where people accrue unavoidable debts like expenses for immediate and necessary medical treatment and in circumstance where finance companies make a calculation that they're quids-in regardless of whether the borrower can service the debt or not. As I said earlier...

The cases where your ridiculous hyperbole could hold true are minor. Unless you want to present evidence to the contrary. I don't expect you will, as you've had plenty of chances to do it so far and haven't even made an attempt.

...
[T]he point doesn't rest on whether people service their loans but on what basis and under what conditions they are obliged to do so.

Medical bankruptcies account for over two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies in the US. Is that portion 'significant' enough for you? In the US, how would a bankrupt pay for the third round of chemo they need to stand a chance of seeing their kid's next birthday?

Dude, you said all interest bearing loans are violence. That's ridiculous hyperbole. You've since tried to walk back that statement in a disingenuous way by creating your own definition of what "usury" is. But it's just the same old story with you, Brian. An inability to admit you might have been wrong. It's the same thing thread after thread.

[Brian Peacock]

OK, you win. The woman deserved everything she got for making a bad decision and her suffering wasn't violence, it was self-harm.

[pErvinalia]

Hyperbole overload. Medical debt isn't violence. To suggest it is is stretching the meaning of the word to absurdity.

[Brian Peacock]

Hyperbole overload.

Nope. Sarcasm.

[pErvinalia]

[laklak]

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Fat fucking chance.