I live in Utah. I have a hospital debt that is large enough that I cannot pay what the hospital wants me to pay each month and they have advised me that it will go to a collection agency.

My Question is: "If i make the monthly payments i can afford to the collection agency, can they still touch and garnish my wages"?

All help would be appreciated. Thank You.

I'm am not sure about the laws in your state but I'm from Mich. And here we have something called "consciences effort to pay".If you make an effort to pay your debt they cannot shut off your services or order garnishments.
There are however some benefits to going to collections,the hospital has sold your dept to them for a small fraction of what you actually owe so they are inclined to settle for a half to 2/3's. That is if you can withstand the credit rating reduction.Hope this helps.

A creditor can garnish wages (http://www.directlex.com/) anytime they have a judgment. It doesn't matter if you have an agreement with a collection agency. The underlying judgment provides the power to garnish.

YardDog:

If your hospital debt is that large, you need to go seek legal help from a bankruptcy right now!

Bankruptcy may be your only option. The new bankruptcy law has not gone into effect yet, so you need to act immediately to explore your options under the old law.

The last post is right, it will only get harder to to file bankruptcy with the new bankruptcy law changes. Bankruptcy credit counseling (http://www.bankruptcycreditcounselors.com) is one of the biggest hurdles in the new law.