In the US, how do people go bankrupt from medical bills when most insurance have a max out of pocket?

Question

Just was thinking about this the other day while looking at my insurance. How do people in the U.S. accumulate huge bills without hitting their max out of pockets? Are cancer treatments not usually covered by insurance? Are the doctors that provide the treatment just happening to be out of network?

I guess I’m wondering if there is anyway I can plan to not be in a situation of me or my husband rejecting treatment and dying or having huge medical bills cripple us. We’re relatively healthy now, but the future is near.

I’d like to understand better how it seems to be so *common* for people to not be covered by their out of pocket max.

Thanks.

In: 4623

Answer 1

I once got a $105k anesthesiologists bill because they were “out of network”

We fought back and said “we picked an in network hospital for this procedure. We assumed everyone here would be in-network. Sounds like someone chose an out of network anesthesiologist hoping to fuck us out of our retirement.”

And then suddenly that doctor was some how in-network.