This post is especially for the younger folks who don’t think much about being hospitalized because they think they are indestructible, or because they think it won’t happen to them, or they are just too busy to think about it at all, in spite of the reality that they are one slip on the ice, one red light runner, one trip on the stairs, away from exactly what I just went through.  My situation is caused by disease and aging and this was my fourth surgery.  Medical expenditures are not always the result of something that is under your control.

If you are not carrying insurance but can afford to do so, or if you are carrying cheap insurance that provides poor coverage, hopefully the following figures will cause you to think again about it all. 

Surgery was for two levels of the spine,
L3-4 and L5-S1 (L4-5, in the middle,
already taken care of in an earlier surgery).

Of course, the amount billed is not what the insurance company pays, nor is it what I pay, but it is what an uninsured person would be billed and it is the starting point for everything else.

There would have been an additional charge for an appliance, a back brace, but I reused the one I had from the previous surgery, cost unknown.

Note that the cost of medications required after hospitalization, during recovery, is not included, nor are the cost of transportation and lodging near the hospital for a spouse and the loss of wages and accrual of sick days and vacation days for multiple weeks.