“How shameful that a billion-dollar corporation with millionaire executives would continue to attempt to stick it to middle-class uninsured families while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits,” said K.B. Forbes, Executive Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national advocacy group that educates and assists the uninsured. “CHW’s top brass should sober up and treat the uninsured fairly and with dignity and respect.”

Earlier this week, a San Francisco court blocked CHW’s proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit on hospital price gouging of the uninsured, calling the deal unfair.

CHW’s proposed settlement designed a discount program based on an intrusive system that offered meager discounts based on a patient’s income and assets. The deal also would have excluded 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 also excluded residents who did not live in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

“In essence, 99 percent of the uninsured would have been excluded from their proposed discount plan,” said Forbes. “We were very pleased with the court’s decision.” 

The Consejo believes CHW should charge all uninsured patients, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income, a fair and reasonable price, like an HMO. Currently, hospitals charge the uninsured four or five times more than what they would accept as payment in full from an insurance company.

Forbes added, “We will attempt to reach out to CHW’s lawyers and top executives to bring about a sensible settlement that would include a fair pricing structure and third-party verification and enforcement of the pricing plan.”

In 2003, Consejo was credited by The Wall Street Journal with “a big win” after forcing the nation’s second largest for-profit hospital chain, Tenet Healthcare, to end price-gouging against uninsured patients. Tenet now offers the uninsured the same discounted prices as insured patients.