How do you reconcile this with the high number of medical bankruptcies that supposedly happen?
DM for advanced techniques here
It is heavily state dependent IME. If you live in CA they basically cannot bill you under a few hundred dollars and threaten you with collections. You can simply not pay and they have to deal with it. It is the law it cannot show on your credit report. Plus the fact that insurers often put the patient in between doctor and insurer disputes and punt surprise bills to the patient - I have 30+ collections and an 800+ credit score across multiple bureaus (sp?) with pure medical debt. In some states they probably can ruin you though.
They will put asshole collectors and fake lawyers to harass you but you can just laugh and point to your credit score when they threaten you. It isnt worth their time for a few hundred bucks so they give up. I will do this until they kill me because the system is a complete scam designed to bilk the poorest and sickest of us.
My dad died from tertiary effects of this,
so I get a little angry when I see it happening to me and my health stuff.
I kind of assumed Wichita practiced in one of those states.
Looks like my uncle is at the end. He had a bone marrow transplant in July to fight off cancer but now he has Legionnaire’s disease. Seems like a 50/50 shot to survive but if my mother is flying down to Florida to see him, it’s probably the end. 
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I do not see a high % of medical bankruptcies. Probably less than 10%.
Now I’m not talking about ending up with 50k+ in medical bills here when I say not to pay. That may actually get you sued eventually. I’m talking about the nuisance billing that is the norm for normal medical stuff.
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Oklahoma. My experience is that lots of bankruptcies have medical bills but not that many are caused primarily by medical bills. The biggest thing by far that causes bankruptcies in Oklahoma are the scam car lots who sell junk cars to people at insane prices/interest rates with the sole intention of suing them and then garnishing their wages. 25% of gross pay in Oklahoma. When that happens bankruptcy is one of your only options.
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Just an update but apparently the antibiotics kicked in and they did work. Definitely surviving against the odds though. They told my mother that he only had a few hours left to live over the phone and she flew down to Florida thinking it was over. It’ll be a battle back and he’ll be sedated and on a ventilator for a few weeks while his lungs recover. Though apparently, he’ll have to be on dialysis temporarily as well.
In the end, it’s certainly an insult to his health. But yeah, he made it through this. What a close call.
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This is free in Canada, but in the USA the headline would be “Lucky local man to get two amputations for the price of one!”
heard about this story the other day about a guy who got hit by an ambulance. The ambulance took him to the hospital and charged him $1800. His hospital bills so far have been $50k with more coming. Was being told by a Brit and he assumed only in America.
Oh yeah the guy is suing the ambulance company for $977k.