My eye-opener "wtf is going on over there" moment was when someone told me they Ubered to the hospital after they broke their arm cause ambulances are expensive.
They likely do not know the price before you get in either. It is going to be a different amount for every person, and varied by insurance. And the companies will make up numbers and try to get as much as they can.
~$16,000 is what it cost me to unwillingly go to a hospital in an ambulance, given an MRI (with my phone, wallet still in my pockets... Thankfully only my head went in I guess) and then released 4 hours later blood still dried on my face and told to see my normal doctor to get the results. Had torn something in my thigh and lost a molar, but neither of those issues were addressed. My buddy picked me up and we were gone.
That was 2016 prices. Young and dumb and made a stupid mistake..
and they won’t tell you the price before you get in.
Won't tell you the price
Once you get to the hospital, every individual you work with bills you separately
The hospital make an effort to bill you before you leave, but that's often not the whole price.
Some of them don't even bill you until you've already paid the initial amount and left. Weeks later you can still get bills for hundreds for stupid crap like someone brought you a regular painkiller in a cup but couldn't be bothered to charge you before you left.
I started having double vision (and have a history of seizures). I drove myself to the Urgent Care, who told me to drive to the ER, who let a medical student look at me for fifteen minutes, and then sent me home (I drove back).
At least it was only a few hundred dollars wasted, instead of a few thousand with the ambulance.
We're REALLY hoping for a strong leopard season, and much likethe Right, the Left is hoping that the administration hurts the other side more than us, or at the very least both of us enough to make them change their minds. NGL, chances aren't looking good.
Not going to go as far as to advocate Schadenfreude, but when they take a big hit, I do get a little more hopeful.
Trump supporters are gonna get reamed along with the rest of us and spend the whole time convincing themselves that it's a good thing because at least the Democrats are taking it up the ass.
No joke, we spent ~$16k on out of pocket medical expenses in 2024. That was on top of the very pricey employer sponsored insurance plan that I had for most of the year.