Minn. AG sues Allina for violating state usury laws
Posted by The Interest on February 1, 2009
A difficult concept to understand is the idea of usury. Over time we’ve adopted the idea that usury is charging an excess of interest in a transaction. But as you learn more about usury, you discover that any amount of interest is the siphoning of wealth from one person to another.
This article talks about Allina Health System charging 18% interest for medical debts where Minnesota state law limits this charge to 8%. This is one example of how we continue this idea that usury is just high interest.
Let’s crunch some numbers. Say you have $10,000 in medical debt at 8% interest and you agree to pay this off in 10 years. You’ll pay $4559.31 in interest over that time. Now, how about we change the terms to 18% interest for 4 1/2 years. The amount of interest paid will be $4661.75.
So, is the amount of interest really the problem? Sure, the payment will be larger for the shorter term, higher interest rate loan, but does that really mean that 18% is that much worse or more usurious then 8%? No.


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