Michele

My husband has high cholesterol. He was managing it with medication, diet, and exercise, when his triglycerides sent him into acute pancreatitis. He spent 7 days in the hospital, half of that in the ICU. We have good private insurance, but we struggled with the thousands of dollars in hospital costs that our good insurance didn’t seem to cover. From the moment we left the hospital, we were bombarded by calls and letters demanding that we pay all of what we owed right away. After a lot of panic and a little research, we learned that the hospital had to accept whatever we could pay as long as we paid regularly. We settled on a payment, but we still got calls “encouraging” us to use credit to pay it off sooner. Some months we’d get two bills, and my husband would call and argue that we already paid that month. After that, he’d go to the hospital billing office every month, drop off the check, and get a printed receipt. The whole experience felt like harassment, and we were nothing more than a dollar amount to them. This is why I’m committed to fighting for a healthcare system that puts people over profit.