This article does not give the full story. It appears these people were uninsured and are not destitute. They are screwed. It is scary for all of us, it is sad. The problem is a health care system out of control for profit with too many non-paying people. So they make a profit by charging through the nose every time they get a chance. “Charity” hospitals and state hospitals don’t pay their administrators millions without charging a lot ever time they get even the slightest chance.
It was much better when hospitals were run by charities and not for profit in the pre-Nixon days.
Even my hired hand has health insurance and it is a silver plan, better than mine with lower deductibles and lower out of pocket maximums. It is the required minimum plan for those who get subsidized insurance. I don’t think it costs him and his wife $60 a month after the subsidy. Maybe $90 tops.
Nobody is going to like this but there is no excuse for not having insurance if you make less than $60K a year with obamacare insurance available. It is people that make $60,000.01 and have to pay the full fare that take get screwed. I pay $22,000 a year for bronze plan (more like pot metal) insurance not half as good as the silver plan that costs maybe $800 a year. Why do I have this plan that makes me spend $22,000 a year plus the $7,500 deductible before it pays a penny? Because if something bad happens I don’t want to have to go bankrupt because of medical bills.
Be prepared is all I can say. It is expensive and makes me cringe to pay this much for something I can only use in a disaster when I once got really good insurance back in 2013 for about $6,000 a year. We were younger then but not much younger. Obamacare blew the lid off of insurance rates and the threshold cost to receive any coverage.