almost 29,000.00 for a 5 day hospital stay I am thankful for my insurance but I still have to pay

[greenbriar]

400 bucks...for what we don't know



it cost 250.00 to pee in a cup


over 7 grand for medication...

over 1000 for 2 potassium drip IV's of which the second one was stopped about 10 minutes in as I just couldn't bear the pain it caused


WHAT do people without insurance do? That would literally kill us to have to pay that bill

400 bucks is taking food off our table as it is for a couple months

[Mojambo]

1. "WHAT do people without insurance do?"

Increasingly, they die.

[Maru Kitteh]

7. +1

[mudplanet]

16. First, they and their families lose their houses and all of their savings

then they die.

[Motown_Johnny]

2. 800,000 a year go bankrupt due to medical bills

[greenbriar]

27. I realize I am lucky that I had insurance

I just can't believe it

[virgogal]

3. Outrageous. You could have a hired a private nurse 24/7 and

stayed at The Ritz for less than that.

[greenbriar]

5. the room part of the charge was almost 5 grand

and let me tell you...that bed wasn't the best and the food sucked that is after the 3rd day when I actually got to eat

[virgogal]

9. My one and only hospital stay was 5 years ago(other than childbirth).

I felt like a piece of meat but only had to stay 3 days. Five days would have tipped me right over the edge.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. Can you work out a payment plan?

Send them fifty bucks a month for eight months?

That might help.

But, you're very lucky. People without insurance die................

[greenbriar]

6. Hubby is working on what to do...told me not to worry about it

so I guess I won't worry

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

11. My state has a law that accounts can't be turned over to collections if $25 is paid every month.

You might want to check your state laws. Regardless, whatever you do make sure you pay something on the account every month even if it is $10. Glad you are okay.

[gopiscrap]

12. I had cancer twice...first time insured as yes it was hard..

cost a lot of mony that we could ill afford...second time I was uninsured...it cost 168,000K and we lost everything we had!!!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

15. I am so sorry -

But you're still here, and your story may change things, so keep telling it!!!!

:hug:

[Matariki]

8. WHAT do people without insurance do?

well, a friend who was working two low paying jobs broke his wrist and the bill was $12,000 - no insurance and he would have had trouble paying $400 much less $12k. What did he do? Ignore the bill and let his credit go to shite. Good thing he didn't own a house, huh?

UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER NOW. Like every other freaking first world nation.

[RagAss]

10. These hospitals are the villans IMO

[justgamma]

13. Wow, how come so cheap?

My daughter broke her arm. They charged $14,400 for an 8 hour stay. It's costing me $5000 out of pocket. No way could she afford to pay. She has insurance. Took them over 4 months to pay some. In the meantime, she was being hounded to death to pay up.

[LuckyLib]

18. This is where we need to have the health care "provider" up on

the witness stand in front of congress answering the following question. "Mr. Gotrocks, can you tell me what on earth would cause an 8 hour hospital stay for a broken arm to cost $14,400? I want our committee to hear the cost of each and every detail of treatment." At the end of testimony, I want him arrested for extortion.

[HughMoran]

14. I paid $400 for a 15 minute ultrasound of my gonads

Lots of ways to describe that, none of them good :(

[Coyote_Bandit]

17. That hospital stay

would have cost me at least $15,000 and I have insurance. There's a reason why I haven't seen a doctor for any reason in well over a decade. There's a reason why I exppect to live an unnecessarily diminished and shortened life.

It may not feel like it but you are lucky. Folks like me are effectively excluded from receiving even routine and preventative healthcare.

[rasberry]

19. I used my insurance & they sued me for repayment

I paid $4800 in insurance premiums last year. Then I fell & broke my kneecap which required surgery & a week of hospitalization at a cost of $35,000. I had to pay a $6000 deductible & some co-payments. My insurance company picked up the tab (or so I thought) and promptly sued me to get their money back. I had to hire an attorney to sort it out.

[ddeclue]

22. WTF? Why?

What could POSSIBLY justify THAT?

Did you promptly call your state insurance commissioner, nearest Democratic elected officials and television news reporter in addition to your attorney. Make these bastards pay for this kind of crap with some investigations by Congressmen and state reps and insurance commissioners and with some bad press on the nightly news.

[shimmergal]

20. In the meantime...

there _are_ books that give advice on how to fight back: "Tactics of the Bill Collector and How to Fight Back" was published quite a while ago, but there's probably some newer ones out.

If you own a house be sure you check out your state's provisions for homestead exemption. Most states don't let your home be taken to pay back bills like this, although the amount that's protected may well be unrealistically low in view of this decade's massive run-up in house prices.

Change your phone no. if necessary, and/or switch to a cell phone that only a few people have the number of ('course if you're job-hunting you have to give the number out on applications, and it won't necessarily stay confidential)

Lastly, if you think something like this might happen, there's always the hole-in-the-ground for any cash or valuables you want to protect.

[Subdivisions]

21. A few months ago I had an episode I thought might need

medical attention.

I don't have insurance as I work for myself as an e-commerce administrator. I am also a union tradesman but you have to have and maintain a certain number of hours to be eligible for insurance and since lay-offs are frequent it is difficult to keep.

Anyways... I thought that, because my heart was racing and I was dizzy and felt pressure in my chest, I was having a heart attack. And boy when I walked into my county emergency room and told them my symptoms, it was out of my control from then on. They strapped me, poked me, prodded me, electroded me, lectured me, bedded me, and rolled me to my own room and did so all of that for the next 14 hours or so, coming in every little while to take more blood and vitals. In the end, all the tests came out good with the exception of a slightly elevated blood pressure when I first got there, which they shot something im my stomach to alleviate.

By the time they were done turning me upside down and shaking the money from my pockets, I was in to them for $5000. Now, all I can do is shoot them a $20 here or a $50 there whenever I can manage it. It'll take me years to pay this bill off and it chaps my ass.


Oh, and all I knew when I left more than when I came in was that I might have had an anxiety attack. I left without even really knowing what I had experienced the night before, which was the third time I'd had that sort of episode.

[bobbolink]

23. I hope you are doing OK, and that you are feeling better now.

Certainly, the stress of this shit isn't helping your health any.

Not that this helps you any, but may they rot in hell.

Please get revenge by being very good to yourself!

:hug:

[greenbriar]

29. I am slowly recovering

they are still trying to adjust my meds the pain is still there but NOT as severe




thank you

[juno jones]

24. One of the cooks at the restaurant was in the hospital for over a week-

a complication of an old injury (assault, he was stabbed originally, crime victim). He had no insurance, which is common in our field since our shifts are kept to a minimum to get around offering us benefits. The waitresses were taking up a collection out of their tips, which was sweet, since that's their main income, but a drop in the bucket in the sceme of things. He's not going to be able to return to the job for awhile yet either.

If he wasn't poor and broke before, he is now.

[Citizen Worker]

25. February 2005

In February 2005 I had an emergency appendectomy. Six days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Total cost nearly $35,000. And no insurance.

This has to change and the change is quite simple. Extend Medicare to ALL and to achieve that goal we should go on strike. A couple of days of a general strike and the corporations will be begging the congress to enact comprehensive health care. It's the only way we'll ever achieve it. First, we have to demand change then we have to back it up with action.

GENERAL STRIKE!!!!

[SoCalDem]

26. What they do? well most of them do get the care, BUT

then they are relegated to the rolls of the deadbeats, and are hounded mercilessly for the rest of their lives,until they eventually file for bankruptcy or kill themselves:(

[The Straight Story]

28. I would only charge you $100 to pee in one of my cups

DU'er discount and all :)

Nice post btw!

[greenbriar]

30. bwahaha

thanks