Ron Eaker received a letter from his doctor’s office canceling his upcoming appointment. Why? Because Eaker filed bankruptcy.
Eaker, a former Methodist minister, and his wife, Mary Ann, who is also barred from the doctor’s office, have a long history of medical treatment there. Eaker was a longtime patient who had been treated by his doctor for three heart attacks and he wanted to continue receiving care there. But unlike hospital emergency rooms, which are required by law to treat patients, doctors in private practice are not obligated to do so.
In November 2004, nearly $109,000 in debt, most of it to the hospital and clinic for treatment of his heart attacks and her nearly fatal brain aneurysm, the Eakers decided bankruptcy was their only option. Although both were working, they were uninsured and figured that short of winning the lottery, they would never be able to pay off their debt. Bill collectors were hounding them, Eaker recalled.
“I didn’t want to declare bankruptcy, but I swallowed my pride and took it,” said Eaker, who left the ministry after 20 years to become a nursing home administrator, then suffered his first heart attack at 52 and lost his job.
After his third heart attack, Eaker said, the hospital wrote off his debt. He proposed to pay off his $30,000 bill to the doctor in $50 monthly installments but an employee of the doctor’s offce rejected that, saying, “You won’t live long enough to pay it off.”
Eaker, who works as a desk clerk at a storage facility and as a handyman, said $50 was all he could afford on the couple’s annual take-home income of $36,000. He said his wife earns $8 an hour as a housekeeper at an assisted living facility. She took the job in 2007 because it provides them with insurance, which he said consumes more than 50 percent of her check. Eaker is making regular payments, including $100 last month, to a collection agency hired by the doctor’s office.
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Source: The Washington Post.
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Good article. Sad. Another story of our shameful lack of reforming our health care “system.”