Bill would let public hospitals seize Georgians' tax refunds

A bill that has already passed the state House of Representatives would allow Georgia’s public hospitals to seize their patients’ state income tax refunds for unpaid debt.

Nationwide, rising medical costs and insurance troubles are crushing rural hospitals — and patients, too. One in 5 workers with company insurance says he or she has trouble paying medical bills, with the largest share of that debt being hospital bills. Studies show that hospital bills can easily have errors. Individual charges may also be boosted to make up for other losses, and prices may skyrocket just because they happened in a hospital.

But hospital advocates pushing House Bill 81 say that they’re not fancy high-end facilities and they have no choice.

“Clearly these hospitals are suffering because there’s a substantial population that have come to realize that they will always get treated at the hospital, and decided in the shortage of caregivers their source of care is going to be the emergency room,” said Jimmy Lewis, the CEO of Hometown Health, which represents rural hospitals.

“Then they get their income tax refund and use it to buy candy and beer,” Lewis said.

Read more: https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-would-let-public-hospitals-seize-georgians-tax-refunds/QZXLYJlv3l2IqPOHLokPdM/