Grassley to hospitals: Explain why you're suing low-income patients

Sen. Charles Grassley is calling out nonprofit hospitals who are suing poor patients over unpaid bills and says they could be breaking the law, according to a report by ProPublica and NPR. Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter, dated January 16, 2015, to Heartland Regional Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital in St. Joseph, Mo., that has garnished the wages of low-income patients who were unable to pay their medical bills. Citing the ProPublica and NPR report, Grassley said the hospital, which recently changed its name to Mosaic Life Care, had stretched the law to the breaking point. Grassley wrote that the hospital, "may not be meeting the requirements to be a nonprofit, tax-exempt hospital."