House Working to Help Lower Income Families
The House has just adopted legislation that would help lower income
families faced with huge hospital bills. The new legislation would
guarantee free health care at hospitals for those without insurance that
make less than 150% of the federal poverty level. It would also limit
debt collectors to what they are allowed to do as well.
The new bill will make it so that debt collectors must obtain a court
judgment, and that hospitals cannot charge interest until they do. The
delegates say that in this day and age we should be doing more to help
those that are making minimum amounts of money, as well as those with no
health care. They say that if you can’t afford insurance, how are you
going to pay an astronomical hospital bill?
Governor Martin O’Mallley had directed for the Health Services Cost
Review Commission to look into how much money hospitals were expecting
from their patients who were uninsured, or underinsured, and how they
were going about collecting that debt. They said that what they found
was atrocious to the point that it was forcing people into bankruptcy.
They also said that the hospitals had to offer a minimum standard of
eligibility for charity care, especially in this economy. The hospital
association actually supports the idea as well, because they know what a
tough time people are having right now. With many states now adopting
uniform standards and practices, it was time that Maryland did as well.
They are also now going to be required to hire someone who can sit with
their patients to fully explain the amount of debt that they would be
taking on, and options for paying back that debt if need be.
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