The "follow-up appointment"....

[kadee79]

The people being sued arrived at the courthouse carrying their hospital bills, and they followed signs upstairs to a small courtroom labeled “Debt and Collections.” A 68-year-old wheeled her portable oxygen tank toward the first row. A nurse’s aide came in wearing scrubs after working a night shift. A teenager with an injured leg stood near the back wall and leaned against crutches.



By 9 a.m., more than two-dozen people were crowded into the room for what has become the busiest legal docket in rural Butler County.



“Lots of medical cases again today,” the judge said, and then he called court into session for another weekly fight between a hospital and its patients, which neither side appears to be winning.



So far this year, Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center has filed more than 1,100 lawsuits for unpaid bills in a rural corner of Southeast Missouri, where emergency medical care has become a standoff between hospitals and patients who are both going broke. Unpaid medical bills are the leading cause of personal debt and bankruptcy in the United States according to credit reports, and what’s happening in rural areas such as Butler County is a main reason why.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-follow-up-appointment/ar-AAFWXjI?li=BBnb7Kz

[Tennesseer]

Here in Memphis, Methodist Le Bonheur Hospital was not only suing patients for past due bills but also suing their employees for past due bills too.

When this came to light, Methodist Le Bonheur Hospital agreed to stop suing their employees and begin paying their low paid employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour.  That way the employees with past due bills can pay a little bit each pay period of their debt.

A Tennessee Hospital Sues Its Own Employees When They Can't Pay Their Medical Bills

Methodist Healthcare to stop suing employees for past-due bills, pay $15 an hour

[kadee79]

This is why we need single payer....asap!