[hobbes9324]

Well, the problem is you young healthy male types are by far the most prone to being involved in traumatic injuries. To give you an idea, at our trauma center traumas come in three flavors -

T-5000 - pretty much nothing wrong, not much of a mechanism.

T-green - +/- hurt - say a rollover accident, or you fall off a ski lift from 15 feet.

T-blue - you're [censored] up - shot in the chest or stabbed in the belly, high speed car accident with open fractures, etc.

There is no minimum charge for a T-5000 - "just" the regular bill. For the ED fee, nursing charge, my fee, maybe an x-ray, radiologist fee - you MIGHT get out for a grand. Maybe. The meter spins pretty fast, though.
Now the bad news. If you come in as a green, with NO injury at all - automatic $8000 charge BEFORE I SAY HELLO.
For a blue $14000.

Last I looked, the average charge for a green came to about $20000 - for a blue, close to $100000 (yep, six figures)

note - before you bitch about expensive docs, I get a maximum of about $700 or so - for the sickest, most [censored] up patients. For the T-5000, I bill about $175. The rest goes to all the other place I mentioned.

So, anyway, that's why health insurance is so goddam expensive. Or at least a small part of the reason. And to the guy who thought we don't try to collect on the balance when the insurance company says "here's $500, take it or leave it" - we take it. Then we bill you for the rest, UNLESS we have a contract with your insurance company. (Medicare IS a take it or leave it deal, but you, by definition, don't qualify)

Best strategy - get a HIGH deductible policy from a WELL ESTABLISHED carrier. A lot of big hospitals have captive HMO's that offer these. BC/BS are a (poor) second choice - the coverage is fair, but they are god awful to deal with from both the patient and doc.) If you choose to go with Bob's great health care and pizza delivery, check with your state insurance board and make sure Bob is a real insurance company with the ability to pay if you bust your ass up. Believe it or not, a lot of people who think they are insured find out the hard way that they're not......

And yes, we should have a national health care system. With the special interest groups against it, though - no time soon.

MM MD