Scamming Indiana

 I am disgusted and tired; too disgusted not to post these, too tired to write about them.

Medicaid cuts all Hoosiers will feel (City-County Observer)

Reducing Indiana’s health care costs became even more complicated as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which is projected to cut nearly $13 billion from Indiana hospitals over the next decade. 

The effects of this legislation will trickle down to all Hoosier patients — not just those on Medicaid — as hospitals are forced to cost-shift these significant losses in the coming years.

It's time to stop the ‘scamification’ of Hoosiers (Indiana Capital Chronicle)

The worrying trend is clear: Homeownership is declining in Indiana, especially among Black Hoosiers and low-income families, making inter-generational wealth-building harder than ever. Indiana now has the lowest renter household income in the Midwest and one of the highest rates of severe cost burden for vulnerable renters. And more than 4 in 10 Hoosiers have reported difficulty paying for usual household expenses.

As everyday costs rise but paychecks remain stagnant, Hoosiers naturally look for ways to make their income stretch, like an old blanket that no longer covers a growing child. That’s where our policymakers have allowed the ‘scamification’ to step in, by reducing consumer protections and sanctioning products that strip wealth away from Hoosiers with few options to make ends meet.

Unfortunately, the current federal administration is supercharging ‘scamification’, in part by freezing the critical work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) just as frauds and complaints are on the rise. Since 2011, Hoosiers have submitted nearly 90,000 complaints to the CFPB, at a rate that has doubled in the last year alone. Hoosiers’ most common complaints regarding credit reporting, debt collection, mortgages, bank accounts, and credit cards won’t magically go away just because Congress recently slashed CFPB resources by nearly half in the ‘One Beautiful Bill Act’. But without a strong CFPB, Hoosiers will most certainly be left more vulnerable to more and worse scams in the future.

Other actions at the federal level will leave Hoosiers with less in their wallets as well. While a 2024 CFPB rule meant to crack down on ‘junk fees’ would have capped overdraft fees from an average of $32 to $8, under the new administration, the CFBP joined a banking industry consortium that successfully petitioned a judge to block the fee cap. The ruling will cost Americans $10 billion in savings annually. And while on January 7, the CFPB finalized a new rule to remove medical debt from credit reports, six months later a federal judge ruled those medical debts can remain in credit reports, a move that will negatively affect the estimated 1 in 6 Hoosiers with medical debt in collections. 

Hoosiers, you did this to yourselves.

sch 7/22