Originally Posted by kane

I have some insight on this issues as I have been down this road. Several years ago I had a serious illness and ended up in the hospital for a few days. By the time everything was said and done (hospital, follow-up appointments, medicine, etc.) it came to right around $65,0000. Since I have a pre-existing condition I had no health insurance (this was pre-Obamacare) so I told them I was paying cash and needed the cash price. They lowered the bill to $61,000. When I told them I couldn't pay them in the time frame they wanted they threatened to send me to collections and sue me. I ended up having to hire an attorney and they were able to negotiate it down to around $15,000.

You can damn well bet someone paid that $50,000 that I didn't and I'm sure most of that money was recouped by overbilling insurance companies. The crazy thing is, after my initial evaluation and treatment most of the time I was in the hospital was just getting IV meds and being checked on. There were no big procedures so I bet the hospital still made a profit on that $15,000.