I have never written a post before. I wouldn’t be writing this one now except that deep down I’m hoping that trollish infiltrators and Medicare for All scoffers can picture a family they know in one of these case studies, and maybe they will be able to learn why so many of us campaigned hard for Democrats in 2018 in hopes of one day obtaining Medicare for All.
Your wages can be garnished.
You can lose your home and your car.
You can lose your credit rating
You can even go to jail ...
over a debt as small as $28.00 -- even if you didn’t know you had it to pay.
It’s true.
I know that some already think I’m a victim of a socialist cult, and I confess that I believe trolls and people bashing Bernie have been working overtime on this site lately. So, let’s agree to quit with name calling and look at this problem. Let’s think about our own vulnerabilities. Before I go on, I want to share my two main sources in case you decide to skip this post. You can click on the links and check them out yourselves.
A Pound of Flesh: The Criminalization Of Private Debt, Full Report, pdf. (2018) American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved March 3, 2020 https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/criminalization-private-debt (You have to click on the arrow to the full report.)
Presser, L. (2019, October 16). When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested. ProPublica. Retrieved March 3, 2020, from https://features.propublica.org/medical-debt/when-medical-debt-collectors-decide-who-gets-arrested-coffeyville-kansas/
I first became aware of this issue after reading the story of a woman who had insufficient insurance for a hospitalization. She believed that she had paid the entire amount of the remaining bill. Having never received a word to the contrary, she eventually tossed the file, got married, moved to a new location, and had children. She never had a credit problem. Apparently, she was short by a small amount because her debt was sold to a debt collector. By the time the collector had figured up the fees and charges she owed, the amount due was slightly above the amount she originally owed. This story was written as a plea for help at a website at which lawyers offer free advice. (Nolo.com I think, but when I went back, I couldn’t find the story. Of course the first page there will raise the hairs on your neck!) I’m sorry that I no longer have that information. When I read on to discover that she was indeed in trouble, I couldn’t believe it so naturally I looked it all up. And I will repeat: it’s true.
Like you, I thought “That’s not fair! You can’t lose your credit over an unpaid medical bill!” And that’s true too. But collectors have gotten around that rule by using the fees they charge to force the debt into civil court. Once you are notified that you need to appear in court for an “exam” whether or not you actually received the notice, you can be served a bench warrant which means you go to jail for “failure to appear.” You can lose a couple of days of work as often as the collector demands you show up in court. Because you are in civil court, not criminal court, you don’t get a lawyer. You don’t get help.
You will undergo the same treatment for student loans, car loans, mortgages, and credit cards but most of these can’t match the unbelievable cost of some medical expenses. You can read some of the cases yourself. One I read was about a 90 year-old woman who was taken to jail.
Here’s a short one from the ACLU site.
Rex Iverson got a knock on his door early one
Saturday morning in January 2016. A deputy
sheriff was there to serve Iverson with a $350 bench
warrant issued by a Utah justice court shortly after
Christmas. Iverson was arrested and jailed at Box
Elder County Jail. Jail officials asked Iverson whether
he had the money to post bail; because he did not, they
took him to a holding cell to wait while the booking
process was completed. Later that afternoon, Iverson
was found unresponsive, alone in the holding cell.
He was declared dead shortly afterward. A police
investigation later determined that Iverson, who
was 45 years old, had killed himself with strychnine
poison rather than stay in jail.
Iverson had committed no crime. He was
incarcerated for failing to appear in court over an
unpaid bill for a ride to the hospital on Christmas Eve
two years earlier that cost him more than $2,000.
Iverson had no means to pay the medical debt, even
after he was sued in small-claims court and had a
default judgment entered against him. The creditor’s
attempt to garnish his wages failed because he was
unemployed. He did not show up after the court
issued a notice to appear at a hearing regarding the
unpaid debt, and a Tremonton Justice Court judge
issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Iverson had
struggled financially since the death of both his
parents in a car crash, and though he had previously
worked as a welder and a heavy equipment operator,
he was out of work and living in his parents’ home at
the time of his arrest. The court did not appoint an
attorney to represent Iverson
So, my friends, maybe you could spend a few moments meditating about what would happen to you if you lost your family and your job. I know a woman who died without treatment for her very slow and painful death from a terminal disease because she knew what would happen to her family and because she just wanted to be left in peace. She vowed not to complain and she didn’t. We were very close. When my time comes, I hope that I can have her courage.
No, the rules are not the same for all of us. This is just one post about medical debt. We have a few more issues to think about. I hope that these articles are shared far and wide. Most of the stories I read about occurred in the Mom and Pop towns of the central states. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can continue to support a regime that turns its back so cruelly on its own people. I guess many believe that such tragedies only happen to others.