With Medical Bills Skyrocketing, More Hospitals Are Suing for Payment

In some ways, this might turn in to a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, it's a terrible thing for all of the people involved.

But, I'm going to put on my 'perennial optimist' hat -- a hat which I very rarely wear, mind you -- and try to find the potential for a good end to this story.

See, outside of medicine, you generally can't make people pay for stuff unless they agreed to do so -- and almost always, you have to document the cost up front.

Have you ever been to the auto mechanic? You know how they give you paperwork up front with estimated prices? Turns out that they have to do that -- and get your consent for any price increase before they do any extra work if they want to be guaranteed that they'll be able to make you pay.

Turns out, the law works that way for just about everything except healthcare -- where, of course, you can get bills after-the-fact from doctors that you have no business relationship with whatsoever, that you've never met, and had no way of knowing about.

So, maybe in the long run, courts will start to apply the same common doctrines that cover every other kind of commercial transaction to some of the more egregious of these suits (at which point that'll become the precedent, and the practice of making up prices after-the-fact based on what they think they can extort out of you will have to end.