We live in NJ. My grandfather had a life or death emergency at home and was unable to call 911. I called for him and an ambulance arrived and I accompanied him to the hospital and signed him in. My grandfather ultimately signed the papers agreeing to emergency surgery as he would have died within hours without it. He ended up needing several surgeries from complications and struggled on for 12 days before he lost the battle and died. In the meantime my grandmother (legal wife) refused to sign any papers at the hospital as she felt unable to make decisions. She signed papers giving my father (their only child) power of attorney. That was the first day. Since then, my dad gave all written and verbal consent for procedures. My grandparents do not believe in doctors as per their faith. Therefore, they had no health insurance, save Medicare plan A which came automatically when they turned 62. Plan A covered the bills of hospital nurses, the room in the hospital, medicines, food and the dialysis. The physicians bills and the ambulance bill are not covered. My grandfather had many more medical personnel on his "team" than we knew at the time. His bills are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are unpaid through Medicare plan A. My brother and father applied for charity care at the hospital but got denied because the hospital had to take into consideration my grandfather's income (he worked part time and got a pension and social security) even though he is no longer living. The part time job money is no longer coming in and the pension ended when he died. My grandmother is not able to work and is receiving only her social security now. She sold 2 of their 3 junky cars to get some money and even had a yard sale. She got her household bills down as much as possible by cancelling the cable, etc. My brother has called all the physicians about this and most of them have lowered their bills substantially which we are grateful for. My grandparents did not own their home. Only a car now. My question is this: My grandmother cannot afford to pay these bills. She can barely pay her rent on the social security she gets. That does not include her food and other household bills like heating and water. If she cannot pay my grandfather's bills, is she legally responsible as she never signed any papers in the hospital? Or is my dad responsible since he accepted power of attorney? My father also does not own his home. If my grandmother and my father have no way to pay the bills, will the collectors come after my brother and I who DO own our homes since we were the ones who signed my grandfather into the hospital?? Thanks in advance.