America is the only "civilized" country without a decent healthcare system. Canadian and other European citizens look at America with shock and pity when they read what we have to deal with in this Reddit thread about outrageous hospital bills. Below are 12 stories of various Americans and their experience with almost going broke due to the American healthcare system.
Note: A portion of the people mentioned in this list have medical insurance and were luckily able to have a lot of the bills paid off. However, many people do not have access to medical insurance since it is pricey in the United States. The scenarios below could happen to anyone, and that means many people are going bankrupt from a single hospital stay.
1. This person's costly cure for kidney stones:
"$10,000, for kidney stones. The treatment: wait until you pee them out."
-ACuteMonkeysUncle
2. After being in the hospital with MRSA for 4 months, this person got a nasty surprise:
"I get out of the hospital. Get a call, letting me know that my bill was $650,000 and I was welcome to pay $1000 a month."
-TorchIt
(For all of you math people out there, that is 54 years to pay a bill. One hospital bill).
3. This bill made the person wish their suicide attempt actually worked:
"I called the suicide hotline one time and they sent the police to my house to check on me. They arrested me, took me to the hospital and had me there for 4 hours before releasing me. They charged me $3,600 for the ordeal and I just wanted to kill myself more afterwards."
-KimJongChilled
4. Apparently it costs thousands of dollars to birth a child:
"$26k for having my son in the hospital. Normal birth, no complications. I found out an hour after he was born my insurance didn't cover labor and delivery (despite covering prenatal care?!) so the hospital reduced it to $12k "cash pay".
I ended up getting Medicaid that retroactively covered labor and delivery. I think I paid $21 out of pocket for some blood tests my son needed because it would have been more of a hassle to submit the bill to Medicaid (he was also covered)."
-pikacakes
5. Imagine having to pay for diapers, baby food, baby supplies, and $750,000:
"I think the final bill for labor and delivery plus two weeks in NICU for our twins was around $750,000. We paid about $6,000 out-of-pocket."
-Noctudiet
6. Even with insurance, this person still had to pay thousands for their hospital stay:
"$146,000. Five days in ICU with meningitis . . . My out of pocket expense was capped at $15k. Insurance covered the rest."
-yumspecialk
7. It costs money just to step foot in a room for just a minute:
"In the two years I've had to pay my own bills, I had one for $276.13 when I came into urgent care because my finger was suddenly swollen and green after I had cut it on a microwave plate a week earlier. They looked at my finger for 2 seconds and told me it was fine. Didn't even touch it."
-LoveMissaKitty
8. Don't grow old or get sick in America, God forbid:
"Recently I had a partial knee replacement and so the bills just started coming. The hospital alone billed my insurance $115,000, and I didn't even stay overnight. My surgeon billed $13,000 and the anesthesiologist billed $6,000. My out of pocket is $5,500, so I imagine I will be getting there soon after this, all the tests before surgery and now all the rehab. They bill $78 to get ice after physical therapy!!"
-slammy-hammy
9. In addition, do not get into any kind of accident:
"$560,885 for an ambulance ride, MRI,blood work,and coherence test. My husband was in a very minor motorcycle accident but he passed out so they demanded to take him to the hospital. We where there 5 hours and he had a minor concussion. Lucky for us we have insurance so we just payed copay of 100 bucks."
-pantiexangel
10. And the award for the world's most expensive band-aid goes to:
"Brother-in-laws dog bit my hand. I was visiting for Christmas from out of town and I didn't want to get an infection, so I went to the local ER. I waited an hour in a room to get 4 band-aids and aloe gel. That's it. No testing, no swabs, nothing else. 2 weeks later I get a $1,001 bill and I asked for it to be itemized and 'Supplies' was the only item."
-Eileen-KCCO
11. Just a simple word change can cost you a few hundred dollars:
"Not a high bill, thank god.
I had lots of ear wax so they cleaned my ear for like 10 seconds using a little spray bottle that just sprays water. Cost? $250. Medically classified as "surgery" because they were removing something from my body."
-pandabear8888
12. If you can't afford medical insurance, you're out of luck and doomed to financial trouble:
"Around $900 for a brief emergency room visit. Though I had a four hour wait, the doctor saw me for no more than 5-10 minutes. I was feeling awful and the doctor confirmed I had bronchitis. The visit and medication which I picked up at the hospital cost me around $900. I was 18 and working a summer job which paid me $6.25 an hour, so I had no money to pay it. Eventually, they sent it to a collections agency and I paid in full once I was able to put the money together.
I had no medical insurance at that time and I grew up in a poor household so my family couldn't help me at all."
-ChubbyAngmo
