CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE WEST’S DISCOUNT PLAN FOR THE UNINSURED EXCLUDES 99% OF THE UNINSURED 
 

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In a stinging rebuke of three Congressional probes, embattled not-for-profit hospital giant Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) filed a proposed discount program for the uninsured that would exclude anyone who had had or could have qualified for health insurance 24 months prior to when emergency hospital services were rendered, according to public documents filed in California state court.


“CHW has created an insidious plan that would intentionally exclude 99 percent of the uninsured patients who enter their hospital without insurance,” said K.B. Forbes, Executive Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national advocacy group that assists and educates uninsured patients. “CHW has gone three steps backwards and appears to be engaged in a deliberate campaign to deceive uninsured patients, congressional investigators, and the media by creating a bureaucratic, draconian discount program that benefits no one except, of course, CHW. ”

Hospitals typically charge the uninsured four or five times more than what they would accept as payment in full from an insurance company.

“The hoops, loops, jumps, and skips of CHW’s newest bureaucratic, paper-filled discount policy are designed to benefit the hospital, not the uninsured patient,” said Forbes. “By excluding any uninsured person who had had or could have qualified for insurance two years before visiting the hospital, CHW’s newest policy would exclude 99 percent of the uninsured population. CHW has simply created a price-gouging protection policy. Almost all uninsured patients, even those with pre-existing conditions, can ‘qualify’ for an outrageously expensive insurance plan. The reality is the uninsured cannot ‘afford’ the outrageously expensive insurance plan that they ‘qualify’ for.”

Forbes noted, “What the uninsured need is fair pricing. No red tape, no games, just a fair price for all patients without insurance, regardless of their income. For example, uninsured patients at the Daughter of Charity Health System in California will be charged no more than the discounted managed care rate of the major managed care insurance carrier. That’s fair.”

Last week, Forbes hand delivered copies of the proposed settlement to Congressional investigators in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Forbes and the work of the Consejo against hospital price gouging were featured earlier this year on CBS’ 60 Minutes.