Hospitals have long struggled to collect bills when patients aren’t covered by insurance -- creating delinquent accounts. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to relieve some of that strain by helping pay for coverage for millions of Americans and expanding Medicaid in some states to cover the poor.
Yet while millions of people have gained coverage since Obamacare became law in 2010, there’s also been an increase in insurance that comes with high deductibles and cost-sharing. Under those plans, the first few thousand dollars of annual medical expenses come out of patients’ wallets. That’s money that hospitals like Childress Regional Medical Center in the Texas Panhandle region are unlikely to collect.
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