insurance mandate is needed to prevent 'uncompensated care that will
ultimately be paid by others.'
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington— Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who
owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the
lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because
she was passionate about the issue.
Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she
doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said
Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent
Business. Brown is a plaintiff in the federation's case, which the
Supreme Court plans to hear later this month.
But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for
bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills
could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example
of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address.
The central issue before the Supreme Court is whether the government
can require people to buy health insurance. Under the law, those who
fail to buy insurance after 2014 could face a fine of up to $700.
The business federation, along with other critics of the law, calls
the insurance mandate a "threat to individual liberty" that violates
the Constitution.
Obama administration lawyers argue that the requirement is justified
because everyone, sooner or later, needs healthcare. Those who fail to
have insurance are at high risk of running up bills they cannot pay,
sticking the rest of society with the cost, they argue. Brown's
situation, they say, is a perfect example of exactly that kind of
"uncompensated care that will ultimately be paid by others."
"This is so ironic," Jane Perkins, a health law expert in North
Carolina, said of Brown's situation. "It just shows that all Americans
inevitably have a need for healthcare. Somebody has paid for her
healthcare costs. And she is now among the 62% whose personal
bankruptcy was attributable in part to medical bills."
Lawyers who represent Brown dispute the significance of her
bankruptcy. They say her unpaid medical bills were only a small part
of her debts and did not cause her bankruptcy. They say that she and
her husband owe $55,000 to others, including credit card companies.
And they say her financial troubles were caused by the failure of her
auto repair shop.
Brown, reached by telephone Thursday, said the medical bills were her
husband's. "I always paid my bills, as well as my medical bills," she
said angrily. "I never said medical insurance is not a necessity. It
should be anyone's right to what kind of health insurance they have.
"I believe that anyone has unforeseen things that happen to them that
are beyond their control," Brown said. "Who says I don't have
insurance right now?"
Brown's problems are not likely to affect the outcome in the high
court. In January, the business group told the court it had found two
new plaintiffs who could take Brown's place. But Brown played a
crucial role in the case reaching the Supreme Court.
"There was time pressure" to find a plaintiff for the case, Harned
said. "And candidly, it is not as easy as it sounds" to find someone.
She recalls that Brown was outspoken and stepped forward as a
volunteer. The lawyers found a second plaintiff in Kaj Ahlburg, a
retired New York investment banker living in Port Angeles, Wash.
But when U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson declared the mandate
unconstitutional in January 2011, he pointed to Mary Brown's
complaint. "She is a small-business owner" who "does not believe the
cost of health insurance is a wise or acceptable use of her
resources," he said.
In August, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed.
Florida and 25 other states were suing, but they needed an individual
to contest the mandate. "Mary Brown has standing to challenge the
individual mandate," the judges said, and "as long as at least one
plaintiff has standing to raise" the claim, the court can rule. The
Obama administration appealed, and the Supreme Court said in November
it would decide the constitutional challenge.
But by then, Brown's small auto repair shop near Panama City, Fla.,
had closed, and she and her husband had filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy
petition. Brown said in the petition that her only income was $275 a
month in unemployment benefits.
Her bankruptcy came to light in December, when a Wall Street Journal
reporter interviewed her about her role in the historic case. In a
video interview, Brown said freedom from government was the issue.
"I'm not fighting just for me," she said. "It's my choice to have
healthcare, not theirs."
Shortly afterward, lawyers for the National Federation of Independent
Business informed the court of Brown's troubles, and sent along a copy
of her bankruptcy filing.
The couple owed $2,140 to Bay Medical Center in Panama City, $610 to
Bay Medical Physicians, $835 to an eye doctor in Alabama and $900 to a
specialist in Mississippi.
"This is a very common problem. We cover $30 million in charity and
uncompensated care every year," said Christa Hild, a spokeswoman for
the hospital center. "If it's a bad debt, we have to absorb it."
The business group's lawyers say they weren't backing away from their
bankrupt plaintiff. "She wants to continue in the case. And as long as
she doesn't want healthcare, she qualifies as a plaintiff in our
mind," Harned said.
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