Jefferson Humanities Forum – Luke Messac: Your Money or Your Life – Oct 29

Posted by Jefferson Humanities Forum on October 22, 2024

When patients cannot pay their hospital bills, they are at risk of profound financial and legal consequences. They face lawsuits, wage garnishment, home foreclosure, denial of care, and even jail time. How did hospitals come to use such tactics to collect debts, and how do they affect patients and the physicians responsible for their care? Emergency physician and historian Luke Messac studies how medical debt collection became a multi-billion-dollar industry and the effects of aggressive debt collection on health and financial outcomes. The problem asks us to reconsider the purpose of our modern healthcare system and whom it truly serves. Dr. Messac will be joined by panelists Lindsey Muniak and Jared Walker to discuss their advocacy and innovative solutions to this urgent issue.

Keynote speaker Luke Messac is an attending physician in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine and an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. He received his BA from Harvard University, his MD and PhD in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania and completed residency training in emergency medicine at Rhode Island Hospital. His research focuses on the history and political economy of health care. His first book, No More to Spend, is a history of medical neglect in colonial-era southern Africa. His second book, Your Money or Your Life, is a history of medical debt collection in the United States.

Date and Time: Tuesday, October 29, 5:30-7 p.m.

Location: Room 207, Jefferson Alumni Hall, 1020 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA

This event is free and open to all.

Learn more and register here.

Doors open at 5 p.m. Refreshments provided.