Friday, July 21, 2006 

LATINOS PROTEST CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE WEST’S PRICE GOUGING  

LOS ANGELES, CA— Security officers at Catholic Healthcare West’s (CHW) California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles blocked access to the main entrance of the hospital last Thursday afternoon as dozens of Latino protesters marched in front of the embattled hospital shouting “Hey, hey! Ho, Ho! Price gouging has got to go!” while others blew whistles and held banners accusing CHW of price gouging uninsured patients.

“CHW has a ridiculous discount plan for the uninsured that excludes 99 percent of the uninsured,” said protest organizer Lourdes Galvez-Galvan, Deputy Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national non-profit advocacy group that educates and assists the uninsured. “CHW will continue to price gouge thousands of uninsured patients with their insidiously designed plan.”

Routinely, hospitals charge the uninsured three or four times more than what a hospital would accept as payment in full from an insurance company. The aggressive practices by hospitals like those owned by CHW impacts Latinos more greatly because one in three Latinos is uninsured. 

The cause of the firestorm is CHW’s proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco that designs a 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. CHW’s discount program would also exclude residents who do not live in California, Arizona, and Nevada. 

The lunchtime protest in the blistering summer heat comes on the eve of a court hearing set for this Monday, July 24 in San Francisco. “We will continue to fight for justice and fairness until CHW changes its immoral and exclusionary behavior,” said Galvez-Galvan

In 2003, Consejo was credited by The Wall Street Journal with “a big win” after forcing the nation’s second largest hospital chain, Tenet Healthcare, to change its aggressive billing practices against the uninsured by charging the uninsured the same prices insurance companies pay for the exact same care.