Law 360
The knock came just four days after Steven Krueger got out of the hospital. He was recovering from back surgery in his home in Idaho Falls when sheriff's deputies arrived with a warrant to bring him to the courthouse.
Steve was in a back brace and wasn't supposed to travel, except to the doctor.
"I just kind of stood there stunned," says Mari Krueger, Steve's wife. "I was just horrified ... I was almost hysterical."
Mari wasn't stunned by Steve's arrest simply because of his condition. She was also shocked because he wasn't accused of committing a crime. What he was accused of was failing to pay his medical bills.
Thanks to rising medical costs and an increase in insurance deductibles, Steve has plenty of company. More than one in four Americans say they have had trouble paying a recent medical bill, and 82% of workers with employer-provided health insurance now have to meet an annual deductible, up from 63% 10 years ago, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
That increase in medical bills has led to aggressive attempts to collect on them, with hospitals around the country launching thousands of lawsuits against indebted patients. A 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented 20,000 lawsuits filed against patients by Virginia hospitals in 2017 alone, for example.
"We're really in what I would call the perfect storm of policy failures here," says Michael Satz, a University of Idaho College of Law professor who specializes in consumer finance law after having worked in debt collection. He pointed to a collection system riddled with "old statutes" not designed to deal with medical debt.
The end result of that perfect storm? Debtors can find themselves in jail — a harsh reality that's on the rise, according to Satz and others based on their experiences.
A handful of states like Washington and Illinois are starting to update their laws to curb the practice and better protect medical debtors, but those efforts are far from widespread, leaving people like the Kruegers waiting for a knock on the door.
"It just really was humiliating, because we had never been hauled into something like that, you know, we never experienced anything like that," Mari says.
The U.S. outlawed debtors prisons in 1833, and in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jailing people over debt was unconstitutional. But 44 states allow the arrest of someone who fails to appear in court after a creditor wins a judgment against them or who doesn't provide that creditor with information about their finances, according to the ACLU.
In Iowa, for instance, debtors who fail to show up in court or answer creditors' questions "may be arrested and imprisoned until the debtor complies." In Delaware, failure to comply with an examination of a debtor's finances may lead to a contempt of court finding and "imprisonment not exceeding 170 days."
Hospitals, doctors and debt collectors are increasingly using laws like these to effect the arrest and sometimes jailing of those who owe them money, or to threaten them with jail to pressure them into paying their bills, those who work with debtors say.
"In recent years, I have noticed an increase in the number of people being aggressively pursued for medical debts as well as an increase in the number of those who have been arrested for failing to appear," says Doug Depew, a Kansas bankruptcy attorney.
And it's not just Kansas.
"It definitely seems to be happening more," says Andy Spears, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, an advocacy organization that, among other things, works to improve access to health care in the state.
"I just kind of stood there stunned," says Mari Krueger, Steve's wife. "I was just horrified ... I was almost hysterical."
Mari wasn't stunned by Steve's arrest simply because of his condition. She was also shocked because he wasn't accused of committing a crime. What he was accused of was failing to pay his medical bills.
Thanks to rising medical costs and an increase in insurance deductibles, Steve has plenty of company. More than one in four Americans say they have had trouble paying a recent medical bill, and 82% of workers with employer-provided health insurance now have to meet an annual deductible, up from 63% 10 years ago, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
That increase in medical bills has led to aggressive attempts to collect on them, with hospitals around the country launching thousands of lawsuits against indebted patients. A 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented 20,000 lawsuits filed against patients by Virginia hospitals in 2017 alone, for example.
"We're really in what I would call the perfect storm of policy failures here," says Michael Satz, a University of Idaho College of Law professor who specializes in consumer finance law after having worked in debt collection. He pointed to a collection system riddled with "old statutes" not designed to deal with medical debt.
The end result of that perfect storm? Debtors can find themselves in jail — a harsh reality that's on the rise, according to Satz and others based on their experiences.
A handful of states like Washington and Illinois are starting to update their laws to curb the practice and better protect medical debtors, but those efforts are far from widespread, leaving people like the Kruegers waiting for a knock on the door.
"It just really was humiliating, because we had never been hauled into something like that, you know, we never experienced anything like that," Mari says.
'A De Facto Debtors Prison'
The U.S. outlawed debtors prisons in 1833, and in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jailing people over debt was unconstitutional. But 44 states allow the arrest of someone who fails to appear in court after a creditor wins a judgment against them or who doesn't provide that creditor with information about their finances, according to the ACLU.
In Iowa, for instance, debtors who fail to show up in court or answer creditors' questions "may be arrested and imprisoned until the debtor complies." In Delaware, failure to comply with an examination of a debtor's finances may lead to a contempt of court finding and "imprisonment not exceeding 170 days."
Hospitals, doctors and debt collectors are increasingly using laws like these to effect the arrest and sometimes jailing of those who owe them money, or to threaten them with jail to pressure them into paying their bills, those who work with debtors say.
"In recent years, I have noticed an increase in the number of people being aggressively pursued for medical debts as well as an increase in the number of those who have been arrested for failing to appear," says Doug Depew, a Kansas bankruptcy attorney.
And it's not just Kansas.
"It definitely seems to be happening more," says Andy Spears, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, an advocacy organization that, among other things, works to improve access to health care in the state.
To read rest of article, click on link: https://www.law360.com/articles/1241734/from-hospital-to-jail-debtors-face-growing-arrest-threat
7 comments:
Well, shit, why shouldn't they have to pay?! Scofflaws!!!
I know this might be an unpopular opinion however, when all the damn illegal aliens having anchor babies for free, or getting free healthcare, pay their bills, I’ll pay mine. Shit, they are getting 80% from my insurance that is 80% more than they are receiving from others.
Gringos don't pay want everything free or they will steal typical. To bad no rangers over there
There is nothing new here. Once a judgment is taken the winner has a right to engage in discovery of your financial accounts. If you refuse a court order to turn over your financial information, like any court order you can be held in contempt. They just need to file bankruptcy and be done with it.
Montoya, there' going to be a lot of Valleyites going to jail, then? Someone' going to make money and it sure as hell won't be the collector's? You can't double dip by sending those to jail and expect money after that? OR, gonna be like child support, serve jail time in order to get "MILK" money from family and then still go into more debt from being in jail!
Sell the house
Coffeyville, Kansas, where the poverty rate is twice the national average. A gringo town up north where poverty is rampant and gringos rely on welfare checks, ssi, soup kitchens, hand-outs, and anything that's free.
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