Last year my son almost died from septic shock. He was admitted to the ER for 7 days, in the ICU for 4 of those days. I received bills adding up to about $175,000. I proceeded to go into shock! My normal health insurance was not going to cover all of this and I would have been financially destroyed. Fortunately for me, I had volunteered to be mobilized and was serving in the middle east at the time this happened, devastating to have this happen while away from home. But since it was an emergency, military tricare medical stepped in and paid for everything. If this had happened when I wasn't mobilized, I would probably be selling my house and cashing out my retirement savings to pay the medical bills even though I had good health insurance. The cost of healthcare in the US is horrid. Every expense is exaggerated to the extreme and insurance companies and medical providers are locked in some kind of game that ultimately costs us all.