America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System by Steven Brill

Author:Steven Brill [Brill, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Medical Law & Legislation, American Government, National, 21st Century, United States, Political Science, Law, History
ISBN: 9780812996968
Google: hnAOBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-01-05T21:26:55+00:00

THE $28,000 AMBULANCE

A few months after someone in a Minnesota emergency room fetched Bruce Folken’s wallet for him so that he could pay before he was treated, David Cramer, a graduate divinity student at Baylor University in Texas, was in a serious rollover accident on a highway in Bourbon, Missouri. He would later provide this account of how his emergency treatment turned out:

I was flown 60 miles by helicopter to a major hospital, where I received treatment for serious, but not life threatening, injuries. Despite being a doctoral student on a meager stipend, I was fully insured with both auto and health. My medical bills were all negotiated significantly so that I only had to pay around $4000 out of pocket for all of my treatments combined.

However, after my health and auto insurance paid a combined total of nearly $9,000 to the medical helicopter company, they refused to settle the remainder and thus are requiring me to pay nearly $20,000, which is near my entire annual salary (which covers living expenses for myself, my wife, and our two young children).

After doing some research, I learned that the helicopter company is for profit.… Still, after I explained to them that I literally live at or below the poverty line for a family of four, and that I had no ability to refuse their services, they nevertheless continue to insist on me paying the total remaining balance, even suggesting that I put it on credit cards.

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