Former Advocate patients lobby
Congress
WASHINGTON, DC
June 24, 2004 -
Lisette George and Zaida Perez
traveled to Washington D.C. June 24 to describe to members
of Congress how their uninsured families were charged the
highest possible rates for care and were then aggressively
pursued when they could not afford to pay. The two attended
hearings on hospital pricing and collections sponsored by
the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee
on Oversight.
Lisette and Zaida have been working closely with the
Hospital Accountability Project, a health care advocacy and
research initiative of the SEIU, the nation’s largest health
care workers union. The Project’s exposure of Advocate
Health Care—who led the way in discriminatory pricing and
aggressive debt collections in Chicago—helped spark the
national outcry against the discriminatory pricing and
predatory lending practices found at many of our nation’s
hospitals.
Lisette, a single mother of seven in Chicago, will never
forget the night her son became a mistaken target of gang
violence. “Never once did they talk to me about charity care
or financial aid. His bill was approximately $50,000.
There’s no way in hell that I can begin to pay that,”
Lisette said. “I’ve heard Advocate Health Care say that they
have one of the most generous charity care policies in the
country, but all they have given me are collections calls
and bills. I’d like to know, where’s the charity?”
Zaida, who works as a nurse in Chicago, became an advocate
for the uninsured after her husband was rushed to a hospital
that did not offer charity care. “I was shocked when
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital told me they did not have
charity care,” Zaida said. “There was no way we could pay
this bill.”
The two met with U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
who mentioned their stories in her remarks before the
subcommittee. Schakowsky called for “reform of hospital
billing and debt collection practices and for universal
health care coverage. We must recognize that our health care
system itself has failed Lisette George, Zaida Perez and
many other Americans.”
Click here for entire testimony
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