From the E.R. to the Courtroom: How Nonprofit Hospitals Are Seizing Patients’ Wages

[LiberalElite]

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofit-hospitals-are-seizing-patients-wages?google_editors_picks=true

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This story was co-published with NPR.

On the eastern edge of St. Joseph, Missouri, lies the small city's only hospital, a landmark of brick and glass. Music from a player piano greets visitors at the main entrance, and inside, the bright hallways seem endless. Long known as Heartland Regional Medical Center, the nonprofit hospital and its system of clinics recently rebranded. Now they're called Mosaic Life Care, because, their promotional materials say: "We offer much more than health care. We offer life care."

Two miles away, at the rear of a low-slung building is a key piece of Mosaic—Heartland's very own for-profit debt collection agency.

When patients receive care at Heartland and don't or can't pay, their bills often end up here at Northwest Financial Services. And if those patients don't meet Northwest's demands, their debts can make another, final stop: the Buchanan County Courthouse.
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[Live and Learn]

1. k&R nt

[djean111]

2. Greatest health care in the fucking world, right? n/t

[area51]

3. I wish more politicians in this country had the balls to fight for single-payer.

The US isn't a civilized country; if we were, health care would be a basic right for citizens.

[antigop]

5. +1000. Spot on. nt

[antigop]

4. good lord. Why do we put up with this? nt

[quadrature]

6. go bankrupt, or threaten to do so

if you are a bankruptcy-threat,
they will make a deal.

if not (a bankruptcy threat),
you got problems.