If you or your father do end up on the hook for the bill, you don’t have to pay the bill as it is written, which will probably be with exhorbitant rates.
You are free to NEGOTIATE DOWN the bill – a common thing is to negotiate it down to rates that insurance companies pay.
Found that little gem out when a relative found themselves in a bind…[/quote]
My mom had a situation of her own a while back (a surgery without health insurance) and I recall her saying that medical collectors are fairly toothless. I don’t know many details apart from the fact that she’s still “paying back” her five-digit bill at the rate of $30/month: $10 to the hospital, $10 to the surgeon, and $10 to the anesthesiologist. She has a house, a job, and some savings, and debt collectors could not or did not want to touch that.
So, it’s not true that we don’t have universal health insurance in this country. We do, it’s just remarkably distorted and dysfunctional.
