Claiming that Guam Memorial Hospital Administration (GMHA) should collect from the Federal Government and not from her, an FSM citizen sued the hospital when the latter garnished her tax refunds to offset her unpaid hospital bills.
In the Class Action Complaint filed by a certain Tairin Asetom before the District Court of Guam on October 9, she states that she and her dependent children migrated to Guam as encouraged by the Compact of Free Association. She cannot afford to pay hospital bills as she is earning minimum or close to minimum wage, she was not offered health insurance by the companies she worked with, and she cannot afford private insurance. The complaint states that the Federal Government recognizes this plight as in the Compact, it obligated itself to reimburse the Government of Guam for the hospital bills. The Federal Government however, has not been reimbursing GovGuam as it should, causing now GMHA to garnish the complainant’s (and other similarly situated) income tax refunds to pay their hospital bills.
“The Compact of Free Association is likewise intended, as stated in its preamble to help the people of FAS achieve economic advancement and self sufficiency. But what happens, instead, to many of these people when they migrate here to high-rent, high cost of living Guam and start from the bottom, is squalor, and take the available minimum wage jobs, is they find that was little economic boost they had to look forward to by way of EITC refund is garnished by GHMA because the Federal Government is not doing its part and fully reimbursing GMHA for undesired but at times unavoidable and inevitably too expensive hospital bills they may incur for themselves of their children.”
The complaint further adds GMHA should be turning to the Federal Government for the hospital bills “these people simply cannot afford to pay.”
The complainant and the “proposed class members,” the intended beneficiaries of the Compact “have migrated here in reliance upon the Federal Government’s expected good faith and fair dealing in implementing that Compact,” the complaint reads.
The complaint also alleges that GMHA did not observe basic due process of notification of and an opportunity to be heard before the garnishment. GMHA was said to have garnished the complainant’s tax refunds for the past 3 years “purportedly pursuant to 26 U.S.C. section 6402(e) as mirrored in the Territorial Tax Code.”
Asetom and the proposed “class members” seek for declaratory judgment on whether GMHA can garnish their tax refunds. They also want the hospital to stop garnishing their tax refunds. Also, Atesom claims that the hospital bills she allegedly owes were mostly from 2007 and earlier and GHMA never instituted any collection lawsuit, thus the 4-year statute of limitations for doing so has already expired before the offsets at issue.
Defendants to the Lawsuit are GMHA, and Mr. Theodore Lewis in his official capacity as the hospital’s Administrator. GovGuam was not included as defendant.
In an interview, Lewis states that the hospital is just doing what they have been doing even before he came into the picture. He added that the Compact issue is new to him and he himself is trying to understand its intricacies as it relates to the hospital./The Junction News Team
