Phil Hughes, a homeless man she had befriended[, …] showed up one day and offered to paint her house number on the curb for cash.
[Mary Olsen] gave him $5 and a lunch of turkey and mashed potatoes. During the next few years, she hired him for painting, yard work and other odd jobs.
Hughes has no family in the area, so when he developed a high fever and blood infection a year and a half ago and sought treatment at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Olsen told him to give her name and address as an emergency contact.
“I didn’t want him to die and not know about it,” she said.
The $42,000 bill addressed to Hughes that later arrived at Olsen’s home covered the three or four days he spent in the hospital.
[A] collection agency began hounding her with phone calls looking for Hughes. The collectors especially liked to call early Saturday mornings.
She told them Hughes did not live there, was homeless and could not afford to pay. Her pleas made no difference: The calls continued daily for a couple of weeks.
“Phil is so obviously an indigent person that no one would expect he would have enough money for lunch,” she said, “let alone a hospital bill.”
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=13598
This is ridiculous. I bet if he was an "illegal" there wouldn't even be a bill. I don't understand how we have plenty of resources to blow the crap out of the middle East and rebuild it but we can't help our own citizens. Americans have to go homeless, hungry and without medical care while those in "big business" just keep getting richer. Mark
