By Matthew Bunk FAIRFIELD - Sutter Health, a health-care chain that operates hospitals across California, has sued a group of uninsured patients who claim they were overcharged by the not-for-profit corporation.

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Sutter's countersuit against its patients was in response to a class-action suit they filed seeking relief from what the patients called "exorbitant" charges. The countersuit was filed Aug. 17, according to a union representing Sutter caregivers.

In the countersuit, Sutter is seeking to collect the difference between what the uninsured patients paid and the total amount billed, according to a statement provided by the union.

An online search through civil lawsuits in California did not find any record of the countersuit, but it did turn up at least 54 lawsuits the health-care chain has been involved in during the past 10 years.

Sutter Health operates 25 hospitals in Northern California, including Sutter Solano hospital in Vallejo and medical offices in Fairfield.

"Sutter Health is one of dozens of health care providers across the nation targeted by what we believe is an unfounded legal claim," Sutter Communications Manager Karen Garner said Monday. The class-action suit by uninsured patients is "baseless and misdirected."

Sutter's countersuit, Garner said, was only intended to weed out the wealthy patients who choose not to buy health insurance. It is not directed at the poor who cannot afford insurance premiums, she said.

"We're asking the courts to make a determination between those who can and can't afford health insurance," she said.

SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, which represents 4,500 Sutter employees, issued a statement Monday accusing Sutter of being greedy. The union leadership has argued that Sutter's historically high profit margin tells the real story behind Sutter's actions.

"With this suit, Sutter Health is being disingenuous at best, downright malicious at worst," SEIU President Sal Roselli said in the statement.

"Sutter Health is a major part of the problem of our national health-care dilemma. While it's using its nonprofit status to get tax breaks, it is earning 10 percent, 14 percent and 33 percent of revenue.

"This corporation is systematically driving up the cost of health care for everyone."

Sutter's Garner argued instead that the health-care chain offers full charity care for families who make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty income level. That means medical care is free for four-person households with income below $39,000 a year, she said.

Reduced rates are available for indigent families who don't qualify under the federal poverty level, Garner added.

"Sutter Health has a generous policy of caring for uninsured patients," she said.

Source: The Daily Republic