WASHINGTON – As hospital systems across the country continue to crush individuals and families with high and opaque pricing, financial policies, and predatory debt collection practices, Consumers for Quality Care (CQC) provided the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce members with news-documented patient examples illustrating how major hospital systems’ practices have led to devastating financial hardship and compromised outcomes. The cases underscore the lived consequences of predatory hospital practices that many Americans continue to confront.

CQC is also sharing its Nonprofit Hospital Scorecard for each state represented by members of the committee. These scorecards highlight hospitals’ ongoing failures in charity care, pricing transparency, medical debt protections, and patient safety on a state-by-state basis. The materials were shared when the committee prepared for today’s hearing where top executives from major hospital systems will be called to testify on hospital affordability and industry practices.

Infusion Access Foundation, MANA, A National Latina Organization, Treatment Communities of America and Zero Prostrate Cancer are collaborating with CQC to highlight the urgent need for oversight and reform and to provide lawmakers with real-world examples of how hospital practices negatively impact patients and families nationwide. The documentation is intended to provide relevant context and urgency to the hearing, illustrating the increasing role played by hospital systems in the health care affordability crisis in this country.

The documentation shared with Congressional offices includes cases that reflect:

• Predatory billing practices that push patients and families into devastating medical debt
• Financial policies that force individuals to choose between receiving care or going deeper into debt
• Systemic patterns of conduct that compromise patient access and affordability
• Real-world examples of how hospital systems are bleeding consumers dry and contributing to rising health care costs for Americans

CQC emphasized that these reports are part of broader, systemic patterns in which hospital systems are increasingly driving the health care affordability crisis in this country. The stories submitted to Congress represent only a small fraction of the daily challenges faced by patients who are forced to choose between receiving care or going deeper into debt. Simply put: hospital systems are bleeding consumers dry, and patients deserve accountability and reform.