Once a month is "medical debt collection day," in Coffeyville, Kansas, when people are summoned to court to fork over whatever cash they may have toward medical bills. And if they don't show up, they're thrown in jail. (Photo: Shutterstock)
In some places in America, the weight of medical debt isn't just about money. It can lead to getting arrested and going to jail.
An ACLU report that examined the abuses of the judicial system by debt collectors and attorneys and judges who partner with them notes, "The people who are jailed or threatened with jail often are the most vulnerable Americans living paycheck to paycheck, one emergency away from financial catastrophe. In the more than 1,000 cases reviewed by the ACLU, many were struggling to recover after the loss of a job, mounting medical bills, the death of a family member, a divorce, or an illness. They included retirees or people with disabilities who are unable to work. "
A new report from ProPublica highlights just how bad the situation has gotten in some places in the U.S., focusing on Coffeyville, Kansas as a place where things have gone from bad to worse.
Once a month is "medical debt collection day," says the report, when people are summoned to court to fork over whatever cash they may have toward medical bills that never seem to go away.
And if they don't show up, they're thrown in jail.
The judge in these cases has no law degree; in Kansas, a judge doesn't have to.
And if the debt collector who had the debtor summoned asks for it, the judge can grant a bench warrant for arrest—never mind inconvenient mitigating circumstances such as illness (continued or new), layoff, or complete inability to pay.
If the debtor can pay anything toward his or her bill, the debt collector, who works on commission, gets a cut of whatever they can pay—a cut that doesn't go toward paying off that debt.
And it's not just Kansas. Says the report, "In Indiana, a cancer patient was hauled away from home in her pajamas in front of her three children; too weak to climb the stairs to the women's area of the jail, she spent the night in a men's mental health unit where an inmate smeared feces on the wall. In Utah, a man who had ignored orders to appear over an unpaid ambulance bill told friends he would rather die than go to jail; the day he was arrested, he snuck poison into the cell and ended his life."
This is the system that people face across the U.S., where poverty may be soaring in their communities (Coffeyville's rate is twice the national average). According to an attorney who collects the commissions on medical debt,, "The two growth industries in Coffeyville are health care and funerals."
According to the ACLU report, it's not limited to medical debt either. Read its report to see more abuses of the judicial system by debt collectors.
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Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
