And I had a powered vehicle collision that cost ~$83k without any surgery. The care was so bad (waiting 4 hours for stitches) and when they wanted to admit me, I said to myself "fuck it, I want to get some real sleep at home where I won't be woken every 45 minutes just so they can pad the bill even more as an expensive hotel." I got up and walked out. Minus CT and MRI, I could've done what they did in 3 hours what took them 18. 3 broken bones (T-8, nose, and shoulder) and they kept pushing me to take opiates. The pain was tolerable because it was a high-energy impact with clean breaks.
Also, around 2016, I spoke with a young lady in coffee shop in Redding CA who had a nasal infusion pump with a small tube taped to her face. She was preparing her documentation to attend a bankruptcy hearing across the street. She had stage IV terminal cancer and the doctors and hospitals were trying to take everything she owned while she was alive. 62% of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills and 78% had some form of insurance that obvious didn't help them.
I suggest you might want to get out more and talk to people. The US healthcare system is a fucking racket. People with the privilege of good health insurance rarely get outside of their bubble because "they got theirs" and assume everyone else has the same opportunities and protections. That's not the reality.
Still outrageous. In Spain you pay 300 euro a month and in Lithuania it’s like 50 per month. So what you paid buys years of insurance on its own.
P.S. not a fan how the social taxes are collected since whenever you are supposed to get benefits it’s always capped at some ridiculous number…
My late grandmother was often slighted and not offered treatment by VA medical personnel because of her age. It was disgusting, overt ageism beyond whether a particular treatment was suitable or not, she was treated as a second-class citizen not worth helping.