Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

By Steven Brill.

Routine Care, Unforgettable Bills
When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last
March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she
had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie’s
father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family
credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by
at least eight years.
Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small
technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health
insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been
able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital
costs. “We don’t take that kind of discount insurance,” said the woman at
MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean.

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Feb. 20, 2013