A Doctor Delivers Bad News--today's LA Times.

[IronLionZion]

57. Urgent care centers cover IV fluids and prescription pain killers

and total cost would likely be less than $100.

The ER is the worst place to go for this, especially if the gastroenterologist friend knew what she needed. If you want to minimize the financial impact, avoid the ER.

The $10,000 bill is deliberately and arbitrarily high as a starting point to negotiate down. Yes, it's a shitty system and the price is designed to shock us to get us to avoid going to the already crowded ER so that it can be free for people with emergencies. But insurance companies would get that bill down to the hundreds or even less. President Reagan signed EMTALA to make sure ERs don't turn away people because back in the day those motherfuckers really would let minorities and poor people die in the street outside for inability to pay up front for emergency treatment, even if an ambulance brought them in unconscious and bleeding to death.

As other long-time DU liberals have posted on this thread, single-payer would help cover everyone but would NOT solve the problem of high cost of care. What needs to be done is transparent pricing for routine treatments. While it makes sense to us why medicare for all should have some control over prices they are willing to pay for routine treatments, you try explaining to your average american why it's OK for the government to dictate prices to anyone. We already know the GOP is going to say it's socialist rationing.