Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
How does that work exactly? If I get in a wreck and can't pay...how does the govt. "pay" for it?
I've never heard of that.
Matter of fact, when I DID get in a serious car wreck and broke my neck and both arms in 2002...I did not have health insurance. I only had car insurance. And it paid a max of $25,000 (there was only my vehicle involved).
I owed over a $100,000 dollars to the hospital, surgeons, etc.
The govt. didn't pay that. Neither did you or anybody else.
When I was released from the hospital a month later...they sent me a bill. And I began paying it in monthly payments.
Then, after about a year...one of the upper management of the big company that owned the hospital called me and told me the "real" price of my hospital stay: a little over $15,000
The rest of it were overblown prices designed for insurance company paperwork.
So I paid it off and was done.
Are you saying that the govt. comes in and pays our tax money to big privately owned multi-billion dollar medical corp.'s when someone has a wreck and can't pay it?
Really?
That's a hell of a scam.
I wonder if I could get the govt. to pay me whenever somebody does a chargeback?
Must be nice to be in the medical industry or insurance industry huh?
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Most public hospitals and some private hospitals have a fund that they can use to pay the bills of those who can't afford them. A while back a friend of a friend was in the hospital for a mild heart attack and had a stent put in. Their bill ended up being around $20K. They were barely getting by so they contacted the hospital, filled out some forms and went through a process and the hospital forgave all of those bills.
Some of that funding comes from private donations. Some is written off by the hospital as a loss and some of it does come from the government in various forms. So, in a round about way, if someone can't afford to pay the bill and it is ultimately forgiven some tax dollars do go towards paying it.