"I was paying the best I could," said Gardner, who on his $18,000-a-year cook's salary had managed to pay $1,000. "I'm not trying to run. At the end of that week I was going to pay them some more."
I am familiar with this scenario. In a 30 day window of "no coverage", I figured I was safe. I was healthy, 28 years old...... no problems. I had just quit one job, and started another. Insurance is for things you don't expect..... an auto accident, a housefire, an emergency appendectomy......
There is some merit to this claim. Hospitals charge one rate for people with health insurance, and charge a higher rate for those who don't have insurance.
I'm familiar with the scenario too. I was the Patient Accounts Manager in a supposedly not-for-profit hospital and it made me sick.
We sued a guy who worked as a dishwasher at the local truck stop and had three kids but when one of the city "elite" would call in and opine that their bill was too high we wrote it off.
As to Charity, that was a joke. Basically, we didn't do up-front charity. Just before people were going to go to collections we LET (not suggested) people fill out charity applications. If they met the poverty guidelines we would write it off to charity. Of course, you might be surprised how many of the "Elite's" college-aged kids fell into that category.
It ended up OK, as I was leaving I turned them in for Medicare fraud and they had to make a settlement.