My personal experience is from 4 surgeries in the past 3 years, one with local aesthetic and 3 with general anesthesia. I have dealt with over $150K in medical bills related to and culminating in these surgeries over the same period.

If you want the believe you can show up in the ER room with no insurance and get quality medical care -- good luck with that. If you think you will get 70% off at the Doctor's office/ clinic or hospital for cash -- good luck with that.

I just had a major vascular surgery that was a scheduled surgery last month. The private hospital where it was done does not accept uninsured people.

Show up uninsured at the ER room at that hospital they will only stabilize you then transfer you to the county hospital. They only accept pre-qualified patients with a way to pay.

BTW, their costs are lower than most other hospitals around here maybe because all their patients are able to pay them. That said, there is a contracted price there and the insurance negotiated price there that was 61% of the full charge last year for the same procedure on the other side 2 years ago -- haven't gotten the bill for last November's "event".

So, even under these circumstances medical bills are contrived.

If you want quality medical care and to be treated with dignity I would suggest you find a way to pay for healthcare insurance.

Maybe, when there are more people exposed to this healthcare and insurance mess there will be some real reform in healthcare delivery and its pricing but it is an uphill battle to say the least with too many vested interests threatened by any real reform.

I don't like paying $10K to $12K a year in healthcare costs for the past few years but I just say to myself, Self: "How much can you earn if you are dead or a vegetable?" Then I tell myself I am fortunate to be in a position to afford the costs however obscene they may be.

This is a brochure from a request I got from Allstate Insurance to update my healthcare insurer to continue getting my discount on the Auto insurance being the secondary payer on any medical claims for me in an auto accident.

Either Allstate is full of shit on the costs they pay or there is such a great disparity in medical charges. See the lower half of the brochure page I scanned.

From what I have seen I tend to believe them -- I paid workman's comp for many years ...
http://3mp1r3.cam500.com/img/boards/allstate-MCC.jpg

I remember when I was a child in the 1960's when employer paid insurance became first a (some better) union workers' employer paid benefit then in a few years became commonplace with better non-union employers. Back then there were county and state supported hospitals designated to help the lower class workers and their families as well as the indigent.

The world back then was not such a pretty place and survival rates from disease or injury were no where near what they are today. Medical bills were a hardship as I remember.

The problem is rather simple but the solution is evasive: We have created a "medical-industrial complex" to generate profits from what should be a basic guaranteed service for everyone. I am speaking of shareholder dividends or some the the tax-exempt extravagances of non-profit healthcare. Still, on the other side of the coin -- there is better that average healthcare available to those with the means to pay for it in spite of all of the statistics that aggregate the healthcare of the population in the USA as a whole.

I am not saying that this is right -- just saying that that is the hard reality here.