How far do you think 12k gets you for 15 days on a vent; PEG tube, tracheostomy, 6-12 months of rehab, medications and 1:1 nursing?
Not far.
Another episode of "I did my own research".
Nope, not completely. Some of this came out before Nightwolf died. He used his Ph.D. level brain to not only go over the original papers given to doctors (and published in medical journals) but also had all his medical school classes. He only failed to get his MD license because his health started to fail trying to do a residency still designed for 20-somethings, and he was in his early 50s.
His Dad and my Father-in-Law (now in his 90s) was rather famous in his field (I've seen him on TV and in the newspapers) and was also the administrator of a major Texas hospital for many years. The reason we ended up in Ireland is that Nightwolf was born with physical issues that made him uninsurable in the United States in 1996. His Father couldn't believe it and looked everywhere, and afterward, it shook his faith in the American medical system because there was nothing that would cover the things that might go wrong with him. Unless I went back to work for the Federal Government, which, by law, congress has required that any health insurance company insuring Federal Employees must cover all pre-existing conditions and those of their families. Or they can't be part of the Federal system. I know the laws have changed since then, but it didn't change soon enough for us to return to the USA.
I also worked in bankruptcy court and later did the starter paperwork for security clearance for the US government (Dept of Justice). One of the things we had to do was to copy and verify work on bankruptcies. This was from 1989 to 1991. At that time, most bankruptcies in the US were about 50/50 credit card or medical debt. Some of the medical debts were both sad and horrible. The two worst were the woman who was her husband's secretary, and they were insured. He had a heart attack and spent about six weeks in the ICU before he died. The insurance topped out, and the poor women had to declare bankruptcy because the bill was hundreds of thousands of dollars in the late 1980s. The other was a young married couple, both employed and insured. They had a baby that was severely disabled and was in the hospital for six months before it died. Their bills topped way over a million dollars again in 1980s dollars. They had insurance and good jobs, but the insurance cap didn't begin to cover this. So they were also forced into bankruptcy - these were professional and insured people.
I could go on, but I am well aware that while 12,000 dollars is next to nothing in today's medical bills (especially in the United States), it is better than the hospital getting nothing (or very little) because the person is self-employed and has no insurance at all; the family can't pay because they can't come up with gigantic co-pays now required before their employer's coverage will kick in, or because they are employed in a low-level job doesn't pay much and again if they have insurance the co-pays are so high they can never pay them.
So, the cash-strapped hospital not only has a billing system that no one can understand, but they are desperate for any money they can get, especially with patients they know they may only get a little out of.
I know people who have worked in insurance (I worked for the worker's compensation oversight board in Colorado and also dealt directly with claims when the employer was uninsured and the like). Often, their job is to deny as many claims as possible or refuse to approve treatment, or they get demoted and fired. These jobs can be so stressful for a normal and caring person that mental breakdowns are not uncommon.
Finally, after much research, 20 years later (his, not mine), my father-in-law told my husband that we probably should not return to the US. Because the US healthcare system, especially the hospital system, was so out of whack, many hospitals no longer provide insurance for the families of their doctors. By this time, I already had underlying conditions myself, and I wasn't 65 yet, so I did not yet qualify for that magical age when most Americans qualify for the socialist government health care, which many claim to hate until they reach that age (often really need it, often from previously untreated conditions).
So we decided as an extended family that had he gotten his license to practice, we would stay here. Because we simply couldn't afford to live in the US and risk my having a health crisis. Or if he were to have one between jobs or something.
This was about 20 years after the first time....
Do you have any other questions about my not knowing anything or simply doing my own research? Always happy to write a very long and sometimes rather boring post; I'm rather famous for it after 20 plus years on this forum...lol