Health insurance?

Its expensive! If you don't have it you can lose your shirt first time you have a major problem. If you do have it, the premiums are ridiculous. Are the public hospitals required to admit regardless of insurance of not? I still can't get over the fact I was in Honduras last september and had to go to the emergency room after having breathing problems from congestion due to a cold. My bill was $55. Saw a doctor, nurse and got a thorough look at. Was even put on a respirator. And no, insurance or filling out papers was never done. I was never asked to show an insurance card or even if I had insurance. My friend that lives there asked me what I paid. I said $55 dollars. She said, oh they charge you double because you a tourist. I was fully expecting to have to pay several hundred dollars or more. I was more than happy paying the $55 dollars. Same treatment in U.S. would have run me well over several thousands dollars without insurance.
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Public hospitals will admit even when a patient doesn't have insurance, and a lot of the time they'll work with the patient on a payment plan after they're discharged. A lot of patient care is even written off as "charity cases" because the patients have no feasible way of paying the bill. Hospitals lose thousands of dollars each year to this and most of them work it into their yearly budgets. I work in a hospital and if we didn't take patients who don't have insurance then we'd lose half our patient load some days. However, it's still worth it to have insurance if at all possible. Not all premiums are over the top (mine aren't), and it will save you a lot of money and hassle over the long run. American healthcare has grown so expensive lately because everyone has to pay so much more in malpractice insurance than they used to because of exorbitant lawsuits, and the extra money has to come from somewhere.
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