Should hospitals be able to grab your tax refund if they say you owe them money?

[mfcorey1]

A Georgia lawmaker wants to allow many of the state’s hospitals to tap into pending tax refunds to cover unpaid hospital bills.


House bill 81 would allow Georgia hospitals that are owned by public hospital authorities to get outstanding medical debts paid by deducting the money owed from a pending state tax refund. The bill would include authority-owned facilities that are operated by non-profit organizations, which is the case with many hospitals in Georgia.

Rep. Tom McCall, R-Elberton, said it would allow struggling hospitals an avenue to collect money they have not been able to get through billing or collection proceedings. He said he was thinking especially of the state’s small hospitals, many of which are struggling to stay afloat.

McCall said his local hospital suggested the idea and he thought it made sense.

“You know these rural hospitals have got one foot in the grave and the other one fixing to fall in it,” McCall said.

State law authorizes a process that allows several types of government debts, including unpaid traffic fines, to be paid from refunds being processed by the Georgia Department of Revenue.

http://investigations.blog.ajc.com/2017/02/13/should-hospitals-be-able-to-grab-your-tax-refund-if-they-say-you-owe-them-money/

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. No

[Beartracks]

2. No.

In a word: No.

==============

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Yeah, well, what about struggling people who need

an avenue to keep money because they are struggling to stay afloat? Some people "have got one foot in the grave and the other one fixing to fall in it" - and they need their paltry little tax refunds.

[uppityperson]

4. No more than any other company should

[Kimchijeon]

5. NO!

How awful.

[HassleCat]

6. Sure, if we get single payer, universal health care.

Then those small hospitals would do better. So would their patients.

[leftstreet]

7. What's next, credit card debt? Fuck off GA lawmaker n/t

[Wounded Bear]

8. I'll go with HELL NO!!! nt

[NightWatcher]

9. No, hospitals should treat without even thinking about money

I was lucky to have gotten treatment in a hospital that wrote my ten day stay off as charity. I was treated great by the staff.

Hospitals shouldn't know anything about who can pay what.

[Alpeduez21]

10. No that ain't right. Or more precisely it is just like the right to do such a thing.

Time magazine published an article discussing why the cost of healthcare was so high. It was around 36 pages long, came out a few years ago.

It was about why healthcare is so expensive. One of the major takeaways of the article was that hospital administrators are far and away the wealthiest people in rural communities. It is not the hospital losing money it is the hospital administrators are overpaid.

I hate republicans. God, I hate them.

[TransitJohn]

11. Take it out of the administrators' six and seven figure salaries

n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

12. No, but they might get away with it...

My Social Security amount is often reduced because I never got around to paying my VA copay and they can take out a certain percentage of the check for federal debts. Personally, yeah I should have paid, but WTF, I'm paying one way or the other...

So, yeah, government debts can be deducted from government payments.

But, it's tough trying to separate the scofflaws and the lazy from the indigent, should you be so inclined.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. No.