Hey there have been a bunch of stories in the last year about hospitals suing their own patients over past due bills.

Or maybe it's just me noticing that is the kind of thing I noticed these days.

But there is one story I knew I wanted to spotlight

on this show because in this story,

the good guys win a major victory.

Last summer, independent journalist Wendy Thomas published a bunch of stories about how the biggest

hospital in her city, Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, was suing thousands of patients, including a lot of its own badly paid employees.

It was devastating. The hospital runs its own collection agency,

and although it's technically a non-profit,

it banked millions in, well, profits the year before.

And then, a couple months later,

boom, Methodist Hospital dropped thousands of lawsuits and said it wouldn't

file anymore. I mean, wow, when a reporter does a story about one person getting stuck with an outrageous bill and the medical provider says,

hey, we're going to reconsider this bill, that is one thing.

And it's great.

But I can tell you, based on my own personal inbox, There are a lot more of these outrageous

bills than all the reporters in the world could write about. So seeing a

reporter go to scale and win, yeah, that gives me some hope.

Let's go there.

This is an arm and a leg,

a show about the cost of health care.

I'm Dan Weissman.

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