This article from SFGate.com describes the harrowing experience of one of the many unfortunate people who end up in an overburdened US emergency room.
There are 47 million people in this country without health insurance. Richmond resident Joey Palmer is one of them.
He learned how costly this can be after fracturing a rib in a relatively minor motorcycle accident and subsequently being hit with a bill for more than $12,000 from San Francisco General Hospital.
“There’s no way I could pay something like that,” Palmer, 32, told me. “I’m not a bum, but I’m not making a lot of money right now. How is anyone supposed to pay a bill like that?”
Iman Nazeeri-Simmons, director of administrative operations at San Francisco General, said she sympathizes with Palmer’s situation.
“It’s not us,” she said. “It’s the whole system, and the system is broken. We need to look closely at making changes and at how we can deliver care in a rational way.”
Palmer’s story illustrates the broader problem of runaway health care costs in the United States and a system that leaves millions of Americans to fend for themselves.
It also underlines the importance of universal coverage that guarantees affordable health care to anyone, anywhere — a goal that’s become a central issue in California and in the current presidential campaign.
“We are the only developed country that doesn’t cover all its people,” said Stan Dorn, a senior research associate at the nonpartisan Urban Institute. “We also spend a lot more than the rest of the developed world.”
The United States spent an average of $6,102 per person on health care in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canada spent $3,165 per person, France $3,159, Australia $3,120 and Britain a mere $2,508. At the same time, life expectancy in the United States was lower than in each of these other countries and infant mortality was higher.
But those are just statistics. When you talk about America’s health care crisis, you’re really talking about people. And Palmer’s experience speaks volumes.
He was riding his motorcycle through San Francisco’s Presidio on Sept. 19. It was late afternoon. Palmer was heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge and then home to Richmond.
Suddenly his brakes locked, sending the motorcycle into a slide. Palmer slammed into a guardrail. He was pretty shaken up, but he could tell he wasn’t badly hurt.
A passer-by saw the accident and called for help. An ambulance arrived within minutes.
Palmer said he told the paramedics that his ribs felt banged up, possibly broken, but that he was basically OK. He said he preferred to be treated in Contra Costa County, where he lives and would probably qualify for reduced hospital rates because of his income level.
The emergency room experience that Joey Palmer describes is familiar to me from the two years I spent working as a social worker at Rhode Island Hospital, and I can attest to the feeling that sometimes it was total madness. It saddens me that while some people are getting the emergency care they need, they are simultaneously being saddled with unmanageable debt that could drive them to financial ruin.
Kmareka.com 
Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ had many scenes of Canadians, French and British discussing how easy it is for them to get health care. Imagine if Americans had that security. We could change jobs, work part time, start small businesses, without risking financial ruin or worse from lack of health insurance. I know that my employer, like many small companies, struggles to keep providing health insurance when the cost keeps going up but paychecks don’t keep pace. The deductable becomes a bigger hunk of the paycheck. I work in community health, and pay is dependent on what the state is able to pay. The result is that many who provide health care are not covered themselves.