*grumble*

Well, instead of $24,000 for my appendectomy, I only owe $12,800 for it now.   As if I can afford that.   Why doesn't the hospital understand that I had been dropped from medicaid and only had a little over $700 a month income.   It's impossible to pay.  They've turned me over to a collections agency which is calling every day. Yeah,  I finally have medicare but in the 6 months between the two, that's when the appendicitis occured.  What was I to do.. not sign paperwork and die?   They had me where I had no choice to sign anything because I was in severe pain.  I would have died without the operation and of course, they didn't follow normal procedure and did it as an outpatient instead of admitting me.   Yeah, the $24,000 was just for emergency room fees and the operation, no hospital stay, no antibiotics or anything.
All the hospital cares about anymore is money.    I miss the days when doctors actually cared about people.