KC Roberts and her husband Daryl, a couple in Dothan, Alabama, are being sued by the hospital where KC was taken for an emergency appendectomy in 2016.
The facility taking the legal action is the for-profit Flowers Hospital in Dothan. The facility is suing for $37,000, which they say is the cost of the surgery plus the interest built up in the intervening years.
“I told my husband, ‘I wish you’d have let me die,’” KC confessed to CBS News.
The Roberts maintain that they have been making the required minimum payment since receiving the first bill. The pair own and run a small t-shirt printing business together.
“[As] long as I can work, and they will accept payments, we’re going to pay because everything that we’ve ever had in life, we’ve paid for,” Daryl told CBS.
In September 2019 the couple found out they were being sued for the full amount.
According to research done by CBS, “the original $31,000 bill was likely much higher than what she would have paid if she’d had insurance and some $25,000 more than what Medicare would be charged by a hospital, on average, for an appendectomy: roughly $5,800.”
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When CBS asked the Roberts why they chose to go without insurance the couple said they had been forced to choose between paying for health insurance and paying for their son’s college education.
“So what do you do as a parent? You sacrifice,” said KC about the choice.
Flowers Hospital told CBS, “Litigation is always a last resort and is only pursued after we determine the patient has the financial ability to make some level of payment based on employment status and credit record.”
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: henry@new-yhn.local or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.
