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52·4 months agoThey are buying the debt and then just forgiving it rather than collecting any of it. The hospitals/medical facilities are selling off the debt and get money like they would if they had sold it to a debt collector. Not much for reason for anyone involved here to sue about. They’d have to be extraordinarily spiteful even by republican standards
The Impeachment process isn’t identical between the two. US congress has a lower bar for impeachment but requires a 2/3rd vote in the senate to convict which is where those both failed.
In South Korea they have a 2/3rd threshold to impeach and then it goes to a constitutional court to uphold or not uphold it. The prime minister becomes acting president right after impeachment while the constitutional court reviews it
There’s recent precident of the constitutional court upholding an impeachment unanimously in south korea in 2017
I get the sentiment, but medical debt forgiveness this way is nothing new. It’s not helpful to lambast every single good story with dooming. Constant despair isn’t helping us move the needle and fight back. Point out the fights where they, otherwise we’re just making people too despaired to fight at all
The non-profit they partnered with has been doing work forgiving debt since 2014. And there’s been high profile cases of people doing this too. In 2016, John Oliver forgave $15 million worth of medical debt for ~9 thousand people
Other local governments have done the same thing with the same non-profit:
In January this year, New York City said they were going to do the same for around 2 billion worth of medical debt for 500 thousand people over 3 years (paying around $18 million to buy that debt)
In 2023, Oakland County Michigan forgave around $200 million (paying around $2 million for the debt)
And so on