A North Carolina House bill aimed at protecting consumers from being financially destroyed by medical debt was filed Tuesday, May 24. H.B. 1039, Medical Debt De-Weaponization Act would create a pro-family, anti-poverty consumer protection law geared toward setting transparent parameters around the provision of charity care, limiting the ability of large medical facilities to charge unreasonable interest rates and employ unfair tactics in debt collection.
State Treasurer Dale Folwell is once again sounding the alarm on some nonprofit hospitals in the state, with a new report that shows low-income patients are being billed when they were eligible for charity care. This comes on the heels of a similar report released in October by Folwell, who oversees the State Health Plan...
Legislative opponents of certificate of need laws are confident. This may be the year they prevail against the restrictive health-care regulations. But opposition from the powerful hospital lobby remains. Hospitals claim competition would hurt their bottom line. It would place hospitals, especially rural ones, at risk of closing, they say. Charity care they must provide...
A bipartisan group of House members hopes to break a regulatory chokehold on surgical facilities. Reps. Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland; Ed Goodwin, R-Chowan; and David Rogers, R-Rutherford, on Tuesday, April 16, filed House Bill 857. The bill abolishes certificate-of-need laws preventing standalone ambulatory surgery centers from entering the medical market unless they get permission from state...
