For most of her life, Hope Rubel was a healthy woman with good medical insurance, an unblemished credit history and a solid career in graphic design. But on the day an ambulance rushed her to a Manhattan hospital emergency room shortly after her 48th birthday, she was jobless, uninsured and having a stroke.<\/p>\n
Ms. Rubel\u2019s medical problem was rare, a result of a benign tumor on her adrenal gland, but the financial consequences were not unusual. She depleted her savings to pay $17,000 for surgery to remove the tumor, and then watched, \u201cemotionally paralyzed,\u201d\u009d she said, as $88,000 in additional hospital bills poured in. Eventually the hospital sued her for the money.<\/p>\n
Yet that year the hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian\/Weill Cornell, had already collected $50.2 million from the state\u2019s so-called Indigent Care Pool to help care for people like Ms. Rubel who have no insurance and cannot pay their bills.<\/p>\n