Their way.

Compare any several hospitals anywhere in the USA, and the same thing can be shown to be occurring.

Of course, once we attain a Democratic Majority in Congress and a Democrat in the Oval Office, then we can advance to a type of Health Reform so this sort of thing no longer can happen.

Another just needed a couple of scrapes cleaned and bandaged.

That's more than a lot of people in Florida make in a year. And most of the blame for enabling them goes to our glorious repuke controlled State Legislature and our crook Governor.

To residents of Marin County General Hospital (owned by Sutter franchise.) Marin County is outside of San Francisco.

This was back in the 1997 to 2005 era. I don't know if these types of things are still occurring, as I have left the area since then.

It was basically impossible to go to the ER at MGH, and not have at least 10,000 dollars worth of costs billed to you. Especially the uninsured.

I was actually delighted to get my first ER bill from the local hospital up here in Lake County (Northern calif)

Under $ 700. And they treated me.

These fees are literally off the charts and raising all the fees charged by all hospitals. This is outrageous.

My interest goes back to at least the mid Nineteen Nineties.

I had a neighbor who way back in 2004 was charged some $ 13,000 for nothing by the local hospital.

Such maters are of course getting worse, but again, if there had indeed been a principled effort by Democratic Party members to ensure that such things not happen, the "Health Care Reform" efforts of such people as Rahm Emanuel and many other Democrats to keep the system basically as it was should be protested by everyone just as loudly as loudly as complaining about Bill Frist.

I mean, I sure did not vote for Bill Frist for President in 2008. Nor did anyone else at this site.

"They likely would have charged him about $30,000, their typical charge for patients with a concussion."

Wife had chest pains, went to the emergency room. Turned out to be a panic attack. we were there 4 hours and had no insurance(her medicare was under review)

I got the bill. $10,000 for 4 hours in the emergency room.

Under advice from the Emergency room Doctor I asked for an itemized bill so I could go through it and make sure we weren't getting screwed.

You ready for it?

Item on the bill: M.R.S. Cost $80.00

I had to ask half a dozen people before anyone could tell me what M.R.S. was.

M.R.S: Mucas Removal System.

Mucas Removal System: Tissues. I paid $80 for a box of fucking tissues. Actually I got them to knock it down to $10. So they only made 700% profit. Poor bastards.

room and board...35K, I told the nurse I saw after we ALL could have went
to Hawaii for 10 days.

I think my bill was 150K+ for pneumonia.
I will say I waited too long to go, I thought I had the flu.
No chest congestion, just puking and forgetting things.

most hopeful estimates to get out from under (by the BOG/Heritage Care Fan Club) - 50 years.

Having healthy citizens is prima facie vital for a country.

End of story.

these exploitation of people events will continue. We also need to make all hospitals non-profit health care centers. We can just let the private hospitals sink or swim.

During the aftermath of Katrina, the LA state attorney general emphasized that Katrina evacuees who encountered price gouging should contact him with all of the specifics, that price gouging during times of crisis would be handled as a criminal matter.

These price gouging incidents are all the more criminal; the problem is that there are no overseers for regulating fair hospital costs: