Human Rights Watch, the nonprofit that for decades has called attention to the victims of war, famine, and political repression around the world, is taking aim at U.S. hospitals for pushing millions of American patients into debt.

In a new report, published June 15, the group calls for stronger government action to protect Americans from aggressive billing and debt collection by nonprofit hospitals, which Human Rights Watch said are systematically undermining patients' human rights.

"Given the high prevalence of hospital-related medical debt in the US, this system is clearly not working," concludes the report, which draws extensively on an ongoing investigation of medical debt by KFF Health News and NPR.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.