Stories like this seriously make me consider moving back to Canada.
> my insurance, which I pay (wait for it) $1182 a month
> ...
> This was our total bill today. ($498.73)
>
> It took more than seven hours to get the basic medicine
Just to put into context how absurd these costs are, she could conceivably have spent less money and time by flying from NY to Toronto and paying for a doctor visit out of pocket there instead of relying on her insurance in this case...