Crushed by medical bills

[losdiablosgato]

By LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER




DANIELLE P. RICHARDS / THE RECORD
Stroke victim Guido Osso at his Cliffside Park home. He owes Hackensack University medical Center $160,000. The hospital has sued to get the money.

Second in an occasional series

Series archive: Critical Condition

The sheriff's constable delivered the lawsuit to the neat brick home in Cliffside Park on Valentine's Day. It was a bouquet of heartache from Hackensack University Medical Center.

"GUIDO OSSO," it read. "You are hereby summoned in a Civil Action of the Superior Court of New Jersey."

The reason: Failure to pay a hospital bill of $160,170.35.

The wanted man sat at home, slumped in his wheelchair. His head rested on a television tray and his bottom on an incontinence pad. Since a devastating series of strokes in 1999, the 66-year-old Osso hadn't known what day it was, much less the details of his worsening financial situation.

He'd been a butcher all his working life, cutting steaks and roasts at the Grand Union and A&P. He was a member of his union's health plan. When he felt sick that October morning as he woke up to take his 14-year-old son to school, his family thought only of his health.


http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NzA2OTc0JnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==

[friesianrider]

1. Absolutely deplorable.

In this country...absolutely deplorable.

[losdiablosgato]

2. Agreed

[Straight Shooter]

3. Rah, rah, U.S.A., rah rah all the way. Proud To Be An American!!

:puke:

I am so ashamed of the way this country treats its citizens who cannot fend for themselves.

[Kansas Wyatt]

12. But we outspend the entire rest of the world combined for...

Military defense.

Our citizens cannot have affordable health care, but at least our military protects the investments and assets of robber barons and tycoons, and the crooks make outrageous profits in the military industrial business on top of it.

[losdiablosgato]

13. There is a reason it is called the Human Resources dept

That is all we are now, a resource to use then throw away.

[XanaDUer]

4. Disgusting...when will Americans wake up?

:cry:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. They should find a GOOD lawyer willing to work on a pro bono basis...

...to show why this debt could never be paid by a man that lacks the ability to think for himself. And since the lawsuit has been addressed to Mr. Osso himself, I think that no other members of his family could be held responsible for that debt.

At the very least, this lawyer might be able to delay the proceedings until Mr. Osso passed away.

Worth a shot.

[Warpy]

9. His estate will be attached

thus depriving his family of inheriting anything he worked so hard for. If he leaves a widow, she'll be out on the street and will be hounded for the balance over and above what the sale of her home and its contents will bring.

I'd advise them to take anything valuable out of that house NOW. Sadly, I'd also advise her to divorce her husband now. She'll be left with nothing when he dies, but the hospital won't be able to garnish her wages.

I've been telling people about how sick our system really is for ages, and I keep coming up against that wall of denial, that everyone who shows up at a hospital will get treated, and that the bill will be written off if they can't pay it. Such magical thinking leads to the tragedies you see in this story. The destruction of bankruptcy protection leaves people devastated by this stuff no protection at all.

I am ashamed of what my country has become to so many people.

[losdiablosgato]

11. That is why the corps bribed both parties for it

No bankruptsy protection = debtors prison, in your own home.

[newblewtoo]

6. A MUST READ ARTICLE

This is a very long article but it is well worth the time. Amazing but being uninsured is better than being incorrectly insured. Sounds like the union needs to get involved in this big time. I am sure they never imagined their membership could end up like this!!

[babylonsister]

7. How terribly sad. I guess Mr. Osso can kiss his

house goodbye, and then what?:cry: That compassion is really starting to show now. :sarcasm:

[losdiablosgato]

8. I was a member of a church that a similar event happened

A long devasating illness and the family lost everything. It happened in 1998. This is just another thing in corporate America.

[ohio_liberal]

10. This is awful

Each day, Guido was charged the full sticker price - $3,348 - for room rent.



$3,348 a day for a bed in a hospital. Not including all those fun frills like oxygen and food.

The Four Seasons Hotel in New York charges $785/day for their best spa package.

[Richard Steele]

14. Even worse: RAISED prices RETROACTIVELY once his Ins. ran out!

QUOTE:
"Had Guido been discharged on his 21st day, when his health plan was still covering his care, the hospital would have accepted the plan's check for $46,865 as payment in full. Even for the 17 additional days of his stay, Guido would have owed only $50,000 had he been allowed the same discounts as his health plan.

But it didn't work that way. The insurer's discount applies only if the insurer pays for the entire stay, Hogstrom said.

When the hospital took away the discount, it billed Guido Osso "sticker price" for each and every item of his entire stay - it even expected him to pay tens of thousands more out of his own pocket for care his plan already paid for."
...............................................................

This disgusting practice should be CRIMINAL.
Well, I suppose it is, it's just not ILLEGAL.

[ohio_liberal]

16. I read that

It's totally screwed up.

[jbnow]

17. That is what drives me crazy:

"He was charged the hospital's highest rates - its so-called sticker prices - rather than the heavily discounted fees insurers pay. That meant he was billed nearly twice as much as his health plan would have paid for the same care."

That is what happens to the uninsured in all areas...hospitals, doctors, medical tests, lab tests, medicine.

The highest burden is on those least able to pay...usually the working poor.
Some might not be poor while working and healthy, at least to the degree that they can pay their rent and bills and live a decent life...until something happens.
This is on the rise as fewer employers offer health insurance or switch to a lower level of insurance. So many are uninsured and so many more under insured. The burden is overwhelming.

I was so shocked once when I got pretty standard blood work done and the lab accidentally billed me. I called and they billed the insurance company as I had 100% coverage. Their payment in full was 25% of the original bill, what I would have had to pay if I was not insured.

Some of these tests were to monitor liver and blood side effects from a medication I was on that could be fatal if not caught early. It just stunned me to think of uninsured people who needed a medication like that. Assuming they could afford the medication, could they afford $1,000 every 3 months to make sure it doesn't kill them?

If this was just Guido it would be a horrible story...but it will be more and more of us. We have the most ass backward system of any western nation. How dare we ever claim any moral high ground?

[newblewtoo]

15. If he left when ins. ran out? wtfo??

His bill:

Total charges for hospital stay from Oct. 15 to Nov. 22: $232,689.83

What Local 464A's health and welfare plan paid - its discounted rate for 21 days because of limits on plan coverage: $46,865.00

Telephone charges were not covered, and paid by the family at the time: $70.00

The hospital subtracted this amount for unexplained reasons: $41,676.86

Hospital bill sent to Guido Osso: $144,077.97

If Osso had left the hospital the day his insurance ran out, he would have owed nothing. Had Local 464A's health and welfare plan covered his entire stay at the steep insurer discount, the hospital would have accepted this as payment in full: $97,246.00

[DuaneBidoux]

19. Was he able?

[DuaneBidoux]

18. Again I say: Our "Culture of Life Reeks of Death"

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. This is just criminal

How do the people who run these hospitals sleep at night?

[tibbir]

21. It makes me sick and it's happening everywhere.

I was recently "treated" by the Houston Methodist Hospital. They said they had a bed to the person who brought me there until I couldn't come up with my Medicare card. Then all the beds were taken and they had me transferred to another hospital.

In the six hours I basically sat on the edge of the bed in the ER. Even though they knew I wouldn't be admitted they ran a ton of blood work, did a chest Xray and EKG. I was seen for about 5 minutes by the ER doc and a specialist in the ER saw me for maybe 10 minutes.

For all of this care I received bills totalling $3,500. And they did nothing to help my situation. Thank God for Medicare. They slashed the allowable charges down to where my 20% is about $35 for the doctor who charged $585 and $2 for the radiologist who charged $200.

It's unconscionable what the hosptials do to people who are or seem to be un/under insured.

I wish there was a way a lawyer could take the hospital on for this family.

[etherealtruth]

22. This is so horrific, one would pray it was rare ...

unfortunately it is reality for millions of un/under insured Americans. Makes one proud of American priorities:sarcasm:

[Sugarbleus]

23. What a horrible situation. Geez, this just makes me sick

My sister's husband died two years ago. His medicare didn't cover all the expenses so now they are trying to grab her house; her first house which she only lived in for one year before he died. She doesn't qualify for bankruptcy either. :grr:

She is beside herself with worry. She is desparately trying to sell it so she can pay the bills and find another dwelling. Finding something cheap enough after selling will force her to move far away...that breaks her heart and it breaks mine.

FUCKED UP HEALTH CARE SYSTEM NEEDS CHANGING...YESTERDAY!