General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWelcome to Coffeyville, Kansas, where the judge has no law degree,debt collectors get a cut
of the bail, and Americans are watching their lives and liberty disappear in the pursuit of medical debt collection.
Ambulance, Judge, Jail
When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested
On the last Tuesday of July, Tres Biggs stepped into the courthouse in Coffeyville, Kansas, for medical debt collection day, a monthly ritual in this quiet city of 9,000, just over the Oklahoma border. He was one of 90 people who had been summoned, sued by the local hospital, or doctors, or an ambulance service over unpaid bills. Some wore eye patches and bandages; others limped to their seats by the wood-paneled walls. Biggs, who is 41, had to take a day off from work to be there. He knew from experience that if he didnt show up, he could be put in jail.
Before the mornings hearing, he listened as defendants traded stories. One woman recalled how, at four months pregnant, she had reported a money order scam to her local sheriffs office only to discover that she had a warrant; she was arrested on the spot. A radiologist had sued her over a $230 bill, and shed missed one hearing too many. Another woman said she watched, a decade ago, as a deputy came to the door for her diabetic aunt and took her to jail in her final years of life. Now here she was, dealing with her own debt, trying to head off the same fate.
Biggs, who is tall and broad-shouldered, with sun-scorched skin and bright hazel eyes, looked up as defendants talked, but he was embarrassed to say much. His court dates had begun after his son developed leukemia, and theyd picked up when his wife started having seizures. He, too, had been arrested because of medical debt. It had happened more than once.
https://features.propublica.org/medical-debt/when-medical-debt-collectors-decide-who-gets-arrested-coffeyville-kansas/
Medicare for All
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)county in Florida.😳
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)hit rock bottom, imo. We can and must resolve it.
Oppaloopa
(867 posts)My neice was incarserated in Florida for a white collar crime much less than our last governor. She recieved 3 years having 3 young children. She was denined medical care and even forced to work while sick and in pain. The reason was she did not have enough money in her prision account to pay for her medical care. This was due to the dog theif Pam Bondi. Next to Texas our state sucks the most.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)Oh I know it sucks, I just have never worried about being jailed for unpaid medical bills. I am from Indian River County(another red county) and for the next 9 months, I am in Okaloosa county.
LonePirate
(13,431 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Makes no sense not to.
gopiscrap
(23,766 posts)I have a story like that too
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,980 posts)Republicans have the answer; just die and let your estate handle it.
Sarcasm?
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Not at all sarcastic.
keithbvadu2
(36,980 posts)The health care system in China is multi-layered. In larger cities you have some hospitals that are public, which are available to all. And then you have private hospitals that are expensive. My mother-in-law started out on in a private hospital, but the expenses started to pile up and she was transferred to a public hospital.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212912189
Johnny2X2X
(19,213 posts)That's the Conservative dream, locking people up who can't pay their bills, and then while they are in prison forcing them to work as slave labor.
Debtors prisons have been illegal in America since 1833. But that doesnt matter.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/prosecutors-and-judges-have-brought-back-debtors-prisons/
calimary
(81,550 posts)How MUCH they believe in Jesus.
Uh-huh.
They speak with forked tongues.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)They support a president and party that sells them out every time. Most of them seem fine with that until it happens to them. Perhaps some will vote with us this time.
Ligyron
(7,640 posts)Texin
(2,600 posts)(Which was said by Jesus regarding the levying of taxes by the Romans imposed on Palestine).
The protestants have wrapped themselves in this ever since. It's been the chief argument against individuals being able to utilize bankruptcy to settle catastrophic debts - much, if not most, of which was the result of catastrophic medical expenses in more recent years.
CanonRay
(14,123 posts)We're back to debtors prisons
dchill
(38,578 posts)Oppaloopa
(867 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)mountain grammy
(26,661 posts)Medicare for all...
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Scalded Nun
(1,243 posts)Whooda thought?
Doremus
(7,261 posts)1. Why are the people NOT in the streets?
2. Why ARE there still people deciding to live there?
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)although not nearly as fast as we want. My guess is people are stuck where they are for various reasons and or believe they are?
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)CrispyQ
(36,544 posts)Corporations should serve We the People, not the other way around. We use to work to support our private lives. Now our private lives support the corporation. From cradle to grave, in sickness or health, we are nothing but consumers and debt slaves to the corporation. The right blames the decline of America on turning from religion when really the decline began when we gave corporations Constitutional rights just like We the People, and then turned our citizens into profit centers for those corporations. There is some argument over whether the Supreme Court actually meant that corporations should have Constitutional rights, but just like "you can't indict a sitting president" it seems to have stuck.
I think this is one issue that could unite the left and the right. When I told my rwnj cousin that corporations have Constitutional rights just like We the People, he said, "That isn't right."
Reclaim Democracy's Corporate Personhood page: There's some really good reading on these pages.
Slavery is the fiction that people are property.
Corporate personhood is the fiction that corporations are people.
~from Reclaim Democracy
And here's a one page primer from the Sierra Club for those with limited time: Meet the Corporation
Revoke corporate personhood.
PandoraAwakened
(905 posts)Ever since Citizens United, the dark money cluster*** we already had before that SC decision has multiplied exponentially.
UCmeNdc
(9,601 posts)Ohiogal
(32,122 posts)makes me want to cry.
I cannot believe this happens in America. It is beyond shameful.
And that fat fuck in the WH crows about the great economy all the time ....
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Trump is a swine as well as his buddies.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,919 posts)The hospital in Carlsbad, NM does the same thing.
This is behind a paywall at the NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/health/carlsbad-hospital-lawsuits-medical-debt.html
Here's another not behind a paywall. https://www.ktre.com/2019/09/12/only-hospital-nm-city-sues-thousands-over-medical-bills-garnishes-wages/
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)of having the flu, a $6,000 flu. This is what robbery looks like.
Last year when she had the flu and went to the emergency room, she received a bill for $6,000.
https://www.ktre.com/2019/09/12/only-hospital-nm-city-sues-thousands-over-medical-bills-garnishes-wages/