[rad-green] 'Outrageous and Un-American,' Sanders Says of City in Kansas Jailing People for Unpaid Medical Debt

*https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/11/outrageous-and-un-american-sanders-says-city-kansas-jailing-people-unpaid-medical
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/11/outrageous-and-un-american-sanders-says-city-kansas-jailing-people-unpaid-medical>Common
Dreams          February 11, 2020*





*'Outrageous and Un-American,' Sanders Says of City in Kansas Jailing
People for Unpaid Medical DebtThe 2020 Democratic presidential candidate
denounced the fact that people in the U.S. "are being thrown in jail for
being unable to pay their medical bills."by Jake Johnson, staff writer*

*Vicki Ibarra opens a late medical bill for her son at her home on
Saturday, February 2, 2019 in Fresno, California. (Photo: Jabin
Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)*

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday called "outrageous and un-American" the
reality that residents of the small city of Coffeyville, Kansas—and people
across the United States
<https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/criminalization-private-debt>—are
being arrested and jailed for their inability to pay off outstanding
medical debt.

"What's happening here is a jailhouse shake-down for cash that is the
criminalization of private debt."
—ACLU

On Sunday,* CBS* *News* reported
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coffeyville-kansas-medical-debt-county-in-rural-kansas-is-jailing-people-over-unpaid-medical-debt/>
on
the story of Tres and Heather Biggs, a married couple from Coffeyville
whose son Lane was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of five. Heather was
simultaneously suffering from seizures caused by Lyme disease.

"Tres Biggs was working two jobs but they fell behind on their medical
bills, then the unthinkable happened," *CBS* reported. "Tres Biggs went to
jail for failing to appear in court for unpaid medical bills."

Tres told *CBS* in an interview that he was "scared to death" when he was
arrested for the first time over unpaid medical debt in 2008.

"I'm a country kid—I had to strip down, get hosed, and put a jumpsuit on,"
said Tres. The Biggs family had accumulated over $70,000 in medical debt by
2012.

Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted Monday that
"'medical debt' should not exist." As *Common Dreams* reported
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/21/sanders-unveils-plan-wipe-out-all-medical-debt-us-declaring-very-concept-should-not>
last
September, Sanders unveiled a plan to cancel all $81 billion in medical
debt carried by U.S. households.

People are being thrown in jail for being unable to pay their medical bills.

To my mind, that is outrageous and un-American.

"Medical debt" should not exist. https://t.co/vbwBBjmzun

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 10, 2020
<https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1226946434605502465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The Biggs family's story is far from unique. *ProPublica*'s Lizzie Presser
reported
<https://features.propublica.org/medical-debt/when-medical-debt-collectors-decide-who-gets-arrested-coffeyville-kansas/>
last
October that Coffeyville is a city where "the judge has no law degree, debt
collectors get a cut of the bail, and Americans are watching their
lives—and liberty—disappear in the pursuit of medical debt collection."

"I spent several weeks this summer in Coffeyville, reviewing court files,
talking to dozens of patients and interviewing those who had sued them,"
wrote Presser. "Though the district does not track how many of these cases
end in arrest, I found more than 30 warrants issued against medical debt
defendants. At least 11 people were jailed in the past year alone."

The ACLU told *CBS* on Monday that what is happening in Coffeyville "raises
serious constitutional concerns."

"What's happening here is a jailhouse shake-down for cash that is the
criminalization of private debt," said the ACLU.

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