BANKRUPTCY Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

February 26, 2021

$1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill also carries big boost for health care coverage

With millions of Americans now eligible to seek affordable health insurance on Obamacare exchanges newly re-opened to them, even more consumers will want to see if Congress’ impending action on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus pandemic response plan pushed by President Biden further expands coverage options.

The Democrats in Congress have made clear that they hope to get Biden’s financial package passed and in place by mid-March, when earlier approved pandemic plans, notably for unemployment insurance and other economic aid, are set to expire.

Their vote margin is so narrow, however, that they may need to rely on so-called budget reconciliation paths to pass the “American Rescue Plan,” a measure that includes an array of Democratic initiatives, notably those involving their plans to improve the access and affordability of health care, especially with greater coverage of the aged, poor, children, as well as the chronically physically and mentally ill.

January 19, 2021

Only in America: Desperate patients raise billions in online donations to pay for crushing medical costs

by Patrick A. Malone

Modern medicine may be providing patients with significant improvements in key treatment areas, but the cost of care has become so crushing that online campaigns for charitable medical aid have become heartbreakingly common in the United States.

A team of researchers from institutions across the country reported that the well-known GoFundMe website, between May 2010 and December 2018, had provided a platform for more than 1 million aid appeals — with 281,881 of these (26.7%) created to cover individuals’ health care–related costs.

Most of the fund-raising sought to assist cancer patients, with individuals suffering trauma and injuries, or neurological disorders trailing in number of campaigns. As the authors observed in their published study of these pitches:

September 22, 2020

Here are 7 big reasons why Americans should worry a lot about health care

by Patrick A. Malone

Americans have made health care a central concern of the upcoming elections with excellent reasons. Their nightmares about this issue are getting worse, not better:

Medical debt, one of the disgraces of the world’s most expensive health care in the planet’s wealthiest nations, has spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic. A consumer finance firm recently found that its 22 million members carry $45 billion in bills owed to providers and in collections. With the coronavirus also staggering the economy, bankrupting medical debt is only likely to skyrocket as the nation’s 30 million jobless exhaust their finances and lose health insurance from their work.
Health insurance offers one of the few widely available means for ordinary folks to try to protect themselves and their loved ones from seeing their finances destroyed by illness or injury. But new U.S. Census data, describing a time before the pandemic, shows that “the first three years of President Trump’s tenure were a period of contracting health insurance coverage,” the Washington Post reported. “The decreases reversed gains that began near the end of the Great Recession and accelerated during early years of expanded access to health plans and Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act — the sprawling law that was a signature domestic achievement of President Barack Obama and has been derided by Republicans, including Trump, ever since.” Just under 30 million Americans were uninsured — 1 in 10 of us, with the numbers rising by several million over the last several years of the Trump term.

September 3, 2020

With conventions over, who will support or tear down crucial health supports?

by Patrick A. Malone

Health care persists as one of the top concerns for voters as they consider candidates this fall — not just for the presidency but up and down the ballot.

A lot got said at the political conventions in the last two weeks on the topic, and, to their credit, media organizations have engaged in fact-checking and myth-busting about health-related topics.

But beyond the crafted speeches over four nights for each party and looming past the repeated talking points of the candidates and their hand-picked supporters, voters will confront issues of huge gravity — some well known and others maybe less so.

August 12, 2020

Missouri the latest state to show big backing for Medicaid and Obamacare

by Patrick A. Malone

Voters keep sending Republicans — in statehouses, Congress, and the White House — a clear message: Americans want affordable, accessible health insurance, most notably as offered under the GOP-loathed Affordable Care Act, and especially for the poor and working poor via Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

This issue, if anything, may be rising in importance to the U.S. electorate as the Covid-19 pandemic rages without check and millions of Americans wrestle with pervasive joblessness that wiped out many people’s health insurance coverage.

Just weeks after voters in red Oklahoma backed a state constitutional amendment to expand Medicaid and narrowly defied the opposition of powerful GOP politicians who have dominated their state, residents of the “Show Me” state of Missouri showed up in force to approve Missouri’s expansion of the program coverage, by a 53% to 47% margin.

November 10, 2019

Hospital tries to stick ER nurse with $1 million in debt for her preemie’s care

by Patrick A. Malone

It’s the price and cost problem, stupid. That’s a fictitious but new tattoo that voters might want politicians to take up as they consider the many major problems with the American health care system, especially as yet more medical billing outrages surface.

Marshall Allen, a reporter for ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative site, posted about a doozy: It’s about almost $1 million in charges that a hospital group sought to saddle a new mom with, even as she wrestled with pregnancy complications and an ailing premature baby.

That mom also happened to be an emergency room nurse. And the chain that flubbed her medical bill was her own employer: Dignity hospitals. That’s a Christian medical enterprise that describes itself as the fifth largest health system in the nation and has as its motto, “Hello, human kindness.” As Allen reported, it’s worth noting this, too, about Dignity:

September 29, 2019

Is Sanders’ plan to erase $81 billion in U.S. medical debt really all that crazy?

by Patrick A. Malone

Critics have attacked Sen. Bernie Sanders for his proposal to wipe out $81 billion in medical debt, including by changing rules around debt collection and bankruptcy. He also called for “replacing the giant credit reporting agencies with a ‘public credit registry’ that would ignore medical debt when calculating credit scores,” reported the New York Times.

Well, there he goes again, with interesting but hard to execute ideas, critics replied to Sanders’ medical debt idea, dissecting it to pieces.

But dig into some of the news articles and important realities flare up. Even his critics concede that medical debt has become a nightmare for too many Americans, contributing in unacceptable fashion to family stress and anxiety and, more importantly, adding to the nightmare of medical bankruptcy.

September 18, 2019

There hospitals go again: UVA Health backpedals on draconian debt collection

by Patrick A. Malone

Is a public pillorying the only way to stop big hospitals from pursuing patients for medical debt with the zeal of demons from the underworld?

The University of Virginia Health System — an enterprise that racked up an $87 million operating profit on revenue of $1.7 billion in the fiscal year ending in June and that holds stocks, bonds and other investments worth about $1 billion — has become the latest institution to get a journalistic blaming and shaming for extreme debt collection practices that would make proud Inspector Javert in Les Miserables.

The independent, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service and the Washington Post deserve credit for their investigation into UVA avariciousness. As KHN reported of the state operation:

September 17, 2019

With GOP still tearing at ACA, uninsured rate rises for first time in decade

by Patrick A. Malone

The Grand Old Party may have just won the dictionary definition of a Pyrrhic Victory. That’s because Republicans’ decade-long assault on the Affordable Care Act his finally showing predictable results, with the share of Americans lacking health insurance increasing for the first time in 10 years.

The rate and number of people without health insurance increased from 7.9%, or 25.6 million, in 2017 to 8.5%, or 27.5 million, in 2018, officials reported.

The nation’s children got a kick in the face, too, with almost half a million more youngsters uninsured in 2018 versus 2017 — a decline attributable mostly to a reduction in the number of kids covered by safety net programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program aka CHIP.

September 3, 2019

Transplant patient’s nightmares illustrate why patients fear and loathe medical bills

by Patrick A. Malone

It may be bad for the blood pressure. But to understand a key reason why Americans seethe when talking about medical bills and medical costs, just start perusing a timely new magazine report on hospitals and debt collection.

The Atlantic article — “What Happens When You Don’t Pay a Hospital Bill” — details the horrors and frustrations experienced by Joclyn Krevat, an occupational therapist in New York. She sought medical care for what she thought was a nasty case of flu. She, instead, suffered from a severe heart inflammation — and ended up undergoing a costly and physically draining heart transplant.

Weak, sick, and on the brink, Krevat still was hounded by out-of-control debt collectors — cruel men and women who not only lack hearts of their own but who engage in relentless, often ridiculous tactics (like trying to connect on social media, just to harp on patients there about their bills) to wring pennies out of those with illness and injury, reported writer Olga Khazan.