Hospital bills overwhelm Amish

Subject: Hospital bills overwhelm Amish Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:51 pm

NEW YORK: Amish groups in the United States are facing a financial crisis that could threaten their way of life as they struggle to cope with an epidemic of deadly genetic diseases.

"Old Order" Amish and Mennonites believe in self-sufficiency, refusing to buy health insurance or take part in government-assisted schemes.

The farmers, descendants of 17th-century Dutch Anabaptists, say they have a religious duty to provide for each other when ill.

But in the Amish heartland of rural Pennsylvania, their principles have come up against the hard economics of 21st century medical care as hospitals refuse to subsidise them.

Having married within their own small communities for generations, the Amish and Mennonites are particularly susceptible to genetic diseases that are now rife.

"If things continue at this rate, hospital bills will overwhelm this community's ability to pay, and these peoples' whole way of life will be lost forever," said Dr D. Holmes Morton, founder of the Clinic for Special Children, a hospital in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, that specialises in genetic disorders in Amish children.

He told The Wall Street Journal that hospital bills were inflated, and he has called on local hospitals to offer half-price discounts to uninsured Amish and Mennonites.

Jesse Martin, an Old Order Mennonite farmer, has 11 children, nine of whom are suffering from serious diseases.

He has paid hospitals $US400,000 ($419,000) for treatment in recent years and owes another $US288,000, but says he is no longer able to pay. He is being sued by at least one hospital.

US hospitals are allowed to charge many times the actual cost of treatment to pay for new technology and services. Mr Martin simply wants to pay bills that are "reasonable and fair".

Another Mennonite farmer was charged $11,800 for the single day that his two-year-old son spent at Pennsylvania's Lancaster General Hospital for a respiratory virus.

LNK

Subject: Re: Hospital bills overwhelm Amish Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:59 pm

Poor Amish... they really ought to get out more often... and fuck with others too!

Hospital bills overwhelm Amish

Hospital bills overwhelm Amish

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