
This $153k rattlesnake bite is everything wrong with American health care (2015) - onetimemanytime
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/20/this-153000-rattlesnake-bite-is-everything-wrong-with-american-health-care/
======
greenleafjacob
I know if I had no health insurance I wouldn't hesitate to go to the emergency
room for a snake bite, because I'd rather go bankrupt than die. I wonder if
there is a threshold where since the cost of bankruptcy is basically constant
(it doesn't matter if you go bankrupt for a $100K bill or a $100M bill unless
your assets are >$100K), that the face value of the bill from the hospital can
grow without bound beyond that upper boundary, since no one is actually paying
it?

~~~
onetimemanytime
He [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3099453/Woman-
wakes-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3099453/Woman-wakes-
boyfriend-37-dead-bed-one-day-bitten-poisonous-water-snake-refused-
treatment.html) probably thought that he was going to make it, financial
troubles are real and creditors can make your life virtually impossible.

------
simonblack
I thank Lady Luck that I live in a country with a single-payer system, and
health insurance for 'extras'.

Some years back I found I required an urgent triple-bypass following a routine
cardiac angiogram. 14 days later I had the triple bypass followed by 2 days in
intensive-care. Cost: NIL.

I then had 5 days post-op in a one-bed private room. That was followed by six
weekly Cardiac Rehab sessions. Both of these were covered by my health
insurance. Out-of-pocket: NIL

~~~
onetimemanytime
Your life would have been saved in USA too---followed by a massive and fatal
heart attack the second you the preliminary $875,214 bill :). Doctors at the
hospital bill you extra a lot of times so the bill just keep growing.

You pay for the medicine, for the nurse administering it, for the syringe, for
her breaking the ampule, for mixing it, for disposing the syringe and for the
gloves the nurse used. I'm exaggerating somewhat, but they do try to find a
lot of little things to pad the bill. So what in another country would have
cost $2, in a USA hospital might cost well over $1000.

