We don't have the money in the bank to pay the bill in full or even probably not negotiated down. My husband teaches high school. His salary puts us out of poverty range and ineligable for any type of financial medical aid, and I don't work because of psych issues (again, his salary is too much for me to get disability). We can barely scrape by paying the mortgage, utility bills, groceries, car insurance, and we don't live an extravagant life at all. And I'm sure the bills from the hospital are just waiting to come. Plus, I have to get an upper endoscopy in April. I already had to pay the gastroenterologist $325 for that, and I will be billed for the anesthesiologist and some other doctor after that procedure as well. Oh, and while I was recovering, our air conditioning broke, costing $2500 to fix. Since we live in southeast Texas, going without working AC is awful in the humidity and heat. Even now, it's already 80 degrees most days.

And not to mention, I have psych bills for seeing the pdoc, meds, etc. I'm having to start with a new pdoc (old one retiring), and the initial intake appointment is always more expensive because it takes much longer. Ugh! Why won't anybody in this country do a thing to fix a broken health care system?! And this is not even a political party issue; I had the same problems, no matter the political party running the government.