this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Can hospitals still sell their debts to third party collection agencies? Those groups seem like exactly the type to garnish McD wages.
Collection agencies will buy hospital debt at pennies on the dollar. And then collection agencies can try to annoy you into paying. But they have an even weaker claim on your debt than the original hospital. Getting a court to agree to garnish wages is a drawn out process. And it can be easily circumvented if you quit your job and take up employment somewhere else. In the service sector, that happens so routinely as to make wage garnishment a fool's errand.
I've had my wages garnished from an ambulance trip. 18Y/o me was insanely confused when HR pulled me aside to let me know.
They ended up only getting a few hundred Bucks, how could that possibly have been worth it for them? In any case if they would do that to me it wouldnt surprise me to hear they do it to others as well.
If the debt collector bought the debt for pennies on the dollar, there are edge cases. Even then, it's an expensive process to try and only works as long as you're rooted in a particular job. As soon as you leave, the collectors have to go back and refile all their claims against you against the new employer.
So it generally isn't worth the time, which is why the post is sus.
John Oliver bought a bunch to forgive if I remember correctly.