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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

I couldn’t even imagine going to a hospital uninsured. It means you are pretty much giving them a blank check to take all the money you have.

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I have read and been told repeatedly that if you are not insured, you can typically negotiate any fee down to a reasonable rate, so long as you are diligent about it.

“Reasonable” is relative. Also first try to pull this off yourself. It’s not a pleasant process and takes a long time.

What's your other option? If you're critically ill/injured, the hospital/ER is where you go - that's who can treat your problem immediately.

If you owe a bank thousands, you have a problem; owe a bank millions, the bank has a problem. It isn't in hospitals best interest to have people go bankrupt.

it can work out exactly the same later on if your insurance it decides that they don't agree with doctors about a procedure being necessary, putting you on the hook for whatever.

Yep. My wife was billed almost $500 for out-of-network pregnancy testing when she went in for an injury, as they needed to confirm before they could give her painkillers.

She was certain that she wasn't pregnant, given she had seen her GYN just two weeks prior and was on implanted BC.

We're still fighting the appeal and the hospital regarding the use of an out-of-network lab instead of the in-network lab then used for the rest of tests.

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