County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffeyville-kansas-medical-debt-county-in-rural-kansas-is-jailing-people-over-unpaid-medical-debt/?fbclid=IwAR3GvzmdKvEIS6lticPAoW7NkVjCsjDnfqKsj-mI8X3rkZYGqZm4SLVB86Q

February 9, 2020, 7:18 PM

There is at least one issue a divided electorate can come together on this election year: A recent poll finds 90% of those surveyed agreed on the importance of making health care more affordable.

Millions of Americans remain uninsured.

As CBS News correspondent Meg Oliver reports in partnership with ProPublica, some people are even going to jail because they're squeezed by a system that's putting new demands on overburdened incomes.

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In rural Coffeyville, Kansas, where the poverty rate is twice the national average, attorneys like Michael Hassenplug have built successful law practices representing medical providers to collect debt owed by their neighbors.

"I'm just doing my job," Hassenplug said. "They want the money collected, and I'm trying to do my job as best I can by following the law."

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That law was put in place at Hassenplug's own recommendation to the local judge. The attorney uses that law by asking the court to direct people with unpaid medical bills to appear in court every three months and state they are too poor to pay in what is called a "debtors exam."

If two hearings are missed, the judge issues an arrest warrant for contempt of court. Bail is set at $500.
[Many people could get fired for missing work to go to court.]

Hassenplug said he gets "paid on what's collected." If the bail money is applied to the judgment, then he gets a portion of that, he said.

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In most courts, bail money is returned when defendants appear in court. But in almost every case in Coffeyville, that money goes to pay attorneys like Hassenplug and the medical debt his clients are owed.

"This raises serious constitutional concerns," said Nusrat Choudhury, the deputy director of the ACLU. "What's happening here is a jailhouse shake-down for cash that is the criminalization of private debt."

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