Your Money or Your Life

Debt Collection in American Medicine

De: Luke Messac

Narrado por: Luke Messac

A riveting expose of medical debt collection in America—and the profound financial and physical costs eroding patient trust in medicine

For the crime of falling sick without wealth, Americans today face lawsuits, wage garnishment, home foreclosure, and even jail time.

Yet who really profits from aggressive medical debt collection? And how does this predatory system affect patients and doctors responsible for their care?

Your Money or Your Life reveals how medical debt collection became a multi-billion-dollar industry and how everyday Americans are made to pay the price. Emergency physician and historian Luke Messac weaves patient stories into a history of law, finance, and medicine to show how debt and debt collection are destroying the foundational trust between doctors and patients at the heart of American healthcare. The fight to stop aggressive collection tactics has brought together people from all corners of the political spectrum. But if we want to better protect the sick from financial ruin, we have to understand how we got here.

With wit and clarity, Your Money or Your Life asks us all to rethink the purpose of our modern healthcare system and consider whom it truly serves.

©2023 Oxford University Press (P)2023 Ascent Audio

Medical debt might kill you before cancer!!

This is a must-read for every American. Sooner or later, most of us will be confronted with medical debt — even when we might have good medical insurance. This book makes us face the shocking realities that might be life-changing, well beyond any medical conditions. It’s an important call for urgently needed change.