People in the United States should be offered a chance to buy their own medical debt back from a creditor before it goes to a collection agency.

This must be the week for questions that pop into my head to which I have no answer. So, being a Friday post, I'm going to ask all of you to educate/explain to me a "Why is this a thing?" question. This week, I was thinking about medical debt. Specifically, medical debt in the United States. Most people have health insurance that doesn't cover all of their medical costs, due to high deductibles and co-pays for certain services. Hospitals aren't allowed to turn away patients who need emergency care, even if they don't have health insurance. This means that uninsured patients who need their services will receive a bill afterward, and they may be unable to pay for it. If a person doesn't pay their outstanding medical bill, their creditor will try to set up a payment arrangement (simple enough to understand). When this doesn't get paid, and more time passes, and there is no attempt to repay the debt, then the creditor (hospital) may charge off the obligation and sell it to a collection agency.

Okay...now you have all that background. But there's something more to all of this. Collection agencies are allowed to buy this outstanding medical debt at a fraction of their original value, especially if the chance of collecting the entire amount is remote. Debt buyers may pay as little as $.04 to $.014 for every dollar of a consumer's outstanding debt. All of this is legal in the United States. This is how capitalism works.

And now...here is my question: why can't the person/consumer who owes this medical debt, but it (for themselves) at the same cost. So...here's an example. Let's say I had $30,000 in unpaid medical debt. I can't pay it back for whatever reason, and it has lingered for years. So, the hospital approaches me (instead of a collection agency) and says, "We are selling this debt to a collection agency, but we'll give you first shot. At .04 cents on the dollar, we'll take $1200 and call this good. Whatever. How about it?" I think a lot of people would jump at that chance. But for some reason, I can't find any example of this happening. Instead, we have this predatory step where the debt is handed over to someone else at a super discounted price, and then this new company can go after the full debt with all of their resources. And it's obviously profitable enough to be a good business model for a bunch of companies that honestly are amoral and shouldn't exist. 

So please, explain to me why medical debt gets sold to collection agencies instead of to the person who owns that debt. Why do we have this system in place in this country? I'd seriously like to know the answer.