"Also, if they were politicians it would cost them nothing."
Not sure if they are dead or alive, but I wonder what taxpayers are being forced to pay for the extended hospital stays and "treatments" of these two deadbeats.
Posted on 03/29/2023 12:09:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It’s been a little over a year since Keith Zipprich lost his wife, Jo, to cancer.
Jo battled that cancer for many months, as bills stacked up for those many treatments.
Keith said Jo’s insurance covered most of the costs, and she was paying other bills up until the time of her death. But about a year after she died, Keith said he was surprised when he, himself, was slapped with a lawsuit from a debt collector trying to collect on one of Jo’s unpaid bills with Uintah Basin Healthcare.
“This bill came to me in forms of a lawsuit,” Keith said. “By the time this goes all through court, they’re talking to over $3,000.”
Jo died penny-less, Keith said. She had no estate. So now, the hospital is coming after him for bills that are not his.
When he called the collection agency listed on the lawsuit, he said he was told that he’s responsible to pay for his late-wife’s medical debt under Utah law.
That is, technically, true.
Utah law considers it a “benefit” to the “family unit” when someone goes to the doctor to try and get better. Thus, medical debt is a family expense, and a hospital is free to go after “both spouses or of either of them separately” for such unpaid debts.
Jason Iuliano, who teaches consumer law at the University of Utah, said the law is “absurd.”
Iuliano said the law’s origins go back hundreds of years, to a time before women could own property or enter into contracts.
“It came about as a way for women, in short, to basically buy goods and services and bill them to their husbands because they couldn’t actually enter into the contracts themselves,” he said. “It just doesn’t have a place in modern society.”
More and more states agree. At one point, what is on Utah’s books was the law of the land, but in recent years, 10 states have repealed the law, allowing surviving spouses to be sued personally for unpaid medical debt. A hospital or doctor could go after the estate, but if the estate has nothing, then the hospital cannot collect for the person who didn’t incur the debt, Iuliano said.
Get Gephardt asked Iuliano if there is anything a spouse in Utah can do to avoid getting slapped with the bills themselves if their spouse is terminally ill. The answer is grim.
“Divorce your spouse, or to move out of the house and no longer cohabitate with your spouse,” he said. “Obviously, both of those are terrible options.”
By email, Uintah Basin Healthcare Vice President Maigen Zobell defended its collection practices, writing, “Uintah Basin Healthcare follows standard legal collection practices and we are confident that our collection agencies do the same.”
Zobell wrote they are “still willing to work with Keith on this matter.”
He added, “It is standard practice that a deceased patient’s spouse is considered responsible for the patient’s remaining debt,” and pointed to previous reporting done by the KSL Investigators on the matter.
In a report from 2020, the KSL Investigators found that, while it is allowed legally, it is not standard practice for all doctors and hospitals. The University of Utah Hospital, for example, made it their policy a few years ago to not go after a surviving spouse for medical bills they incurred before death.
“If they were life-time welfare collectors, it would have cost them nothing.”
That’s not true. Specifically, Anything paid to a spouse on Medicaid becomes a lien on the surviving spouse’s estate. It does not come due until the surviving spouse dies however.
I have such a lien against my estate. I’m going through it now with lawyers so as to be able to ensure my second wife can be take care of in case something happens to me.
I took my family to Lake Shasta back in 1997. My 11 year old daughter developed severe diarrhea that was non-stop. After about 3 days, which was on a Sunday evening I took her to the emergency room at the hospital in Redding. We got there around 5 in the afternoon, and I presented my insurance to the staff, there was nobody else in the waiting room. By 7 the place was getting full and every one of them walked up to the window and told them they had a severe headache and forgot their MediCal card. 1 gal even told them her headaches were twice as bad as anyone else in the room and to give her a double dose of painkillers.
They finally saw my daughter and gave her a shot and sent us on our way with a bed pan in case she had to crap while we were driving back to our home in Washington. About a month went by and I got the bill for $6,000 for a shot and a bed pan! Fortunately, I had 100% full medical coverage, but I’m sure it was to make up for the cost of the meth heads that night in the emergency room.
It is horrible situation, but someone has to pay for it. If the spouse doesn’t then it engenders cost-shifting and others are overbilled.
True, and lots of non-alien deadbeats do as well. Is that a good reason for no one paying for what they consume? Will it end well?
She should have declined care, or he should pay.
Why should other sick people/families pay her debt. The hospital performed in good faith and ought be paid.
Screw the next guy, great policy. Democrat?
My golfer friend gave his property to his daughter when he got cancer.
Idiotic
Of course, you are responsible for your spouse and minority children’s medical bills.
Lookout for #1. If hospital bills were as cheap as in Thailand or India she could have paid the bills. Why American hospitals cost 20 times more? I know why. Because we have 20 times more lawyers than other countries based on population size.
Heh, hadn’t thought of them in many years. Don’t think your supposition is accurate though, from the Wiki page on them there seemed to be a major lack of affection from Daryl that caused the split.
So, I cant get any information on my wife’s medical illnesses or bills due to HIPAA laws, nor could I visit her during Covid, but yet somehow a spouse is now liable... BS.
By the way, my wife died of Cancer last year and each time I inquired about her bills they would not let me have any information.
3 grand, after all that time and going to collection? Sounds like he should have written that $1500 check, when he got the first bill.
Insurance probably paid 3-800,000 on her treatment. This wasn’t covered, apparently.
that’s not how that works.
the memory of her remains with all those who experienced her.
tainting that over a few bucks is pathetic
If you think the price you see doesn’t reflect the costs incurred by non-payers, you’re mistaken.
If the service is futile then the provider should eat the cost
Since we’re all going to die regardless of healthcare spending, would you like to appoint a ‘death panel’ to decide when further treatments for you are ‘futile’? I’d rather let the individual trade as much of their wealth as they see fit for healthcare, I just want to draw the line at individuals trading my wealth for their healthcare.
I’m not opposed to paying for actual costs.
Can the heaLTH CARE SYSTEM BECOME more ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT?
Absolutely.
Is the HC System billing process absolutely corrupt? Yep.
Docs [my sole practitioner has long been retired...] no longer seem to run the system. It’s the yuge HC “systems” run by highly paid “administrators” along with HC “insurance” that just have let billing run amok. It’s sick and corrupt.
It seems to me that doesn’t put any money in the hospitals account to pay nursing salaries and other costs associated with providing care.
Stacking accounting losses won’t keep the lights on.
Family funds probably paid her medical bills while she was alive. Spouses can’t go bankrupt separately, can they?
How health care is paid for is the most inefficient mess imaginable. And yes, everything including my own doctor’s group, has been swallowed up by a few giant entities — I guess their economy of scale and “too big to fail” ties to government give them an advantage. It will all crash eventually (my guess is a week after I start Medicare).
Yes, same here.
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