Advocate's price discrimination violates Illinois public policy, says Attorney General
CHICAGO, IL
 
  June 28, 2004 -Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan urged the Circuit Court of Cook County to deny Advocate Health Care’s attempt to dismiss a class action lawsuit filed by low-income patients.
The class action lawsuit, filed by attorney Tom Geoghegan on November 19, 2003, seeks a judicial order to restrain Advocate from overcharging the uninsured and pursuing collections and legal action against these individuals. The Attorney General, in her brief, stated that Advocate’s price discrimination, “as alleged in the complaint, violates public policy.” She also noted that “Illinois public policy requires hospitals to provide care to low-income persons.”
In the 13-page brief, the Attorney General Madigan also objected to Advocate's claim that federal regulations required that hospitals overcharge the uninsured. “Medicare regulations do not prohibit price discounts to the uninsured,” reads the amicus brief. In fact, the “defendants’ analysis of Medicare regulations is not only wrong, but it has been wrong for quite some time.”

The Attorney General's action comes a year after Advocate announced a new charity care program to address public concern about its treatment of low-income patients. Even after the April 2003 effective date of the reforms, Advocate sued nearly 1,000 patients and subjected thousands of uninsured patients to price discrimination.
Advocate’s pricing and collection policies have also been scrutinized by the Lieutenant Governor, the Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee, chaired by Senator Barack Obama, the Chicago City Council, and the Illinois Joint Legislative Task Force on Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Click here to download the Attorney General's amicus brief.
 

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