“I feel guilty about surviving … Looking at the incredible cost of it all definitely adds to that survivor’s guilt.”
“I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!”
June 12, 2020
Seattle Times – Michael Flor, 70, who came so close to death that a night-shift nurse held a phone to his ear while his wife and kids said their final goodbyes, is recovering nicely these days at his home in West Seattle.
But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day.
“I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’ “ Flor says.
The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.
The bill is technically an explanation of charges, and because Flor has insurance including Medicare, he won’t have to pay the vast majority of it.
“You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.”
In fact, because he had COVID-19, and not a different disease, he might not have to pay anything.
But for now, it’s got him and his family and friends marveling at the extreme expense, and bizarre economics, of American health care.
Flor was in Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah with COVID-19 for 62 days, so he knew the bill would be a doozy.
He was unconscious for much of his stay, but once near the beginning his wife Elisa Del Rosario remembers him waking up and saying: “You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.”
Just the charge for his room in the intensive care unit was billed at $9,736 per day. Due to the contagious nature of the virus, the room was sealed and could only be entered by medical workers wearing plastic suits and headgear … Read more.
