Every system has their own problems (at least for the thousands of Canadians who go to the US for healthcare), and there's always reasons as to why things are as they are.

I am also Spanish as some other users and visited California for 5 months. I met a girl in a bar who told me she only had one free visit a year to the doctor with Obamacare. I think that the problem in the US is mainly cost-related:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-an-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/2011/08/25/gIQAVHztoR_blog.html?tid=pm_pop

In Spain we have a public healthcare system that every citizen contributes to with their taxes. The government acts as a great negotiation power that brings the costs down, even for those who have a private insurance in addition to their public insurance. Actually, I have a private insurance "just in case", but I have only used it for my ophthalmology bills and to get psychological treatment due to an anxiety crisis. Both these situations are covered in the public system, but I have had a private doctor since I was little because my mother wanted it to be that way and I took the psychological treatment through private means because I had to wait much longer in the public system and had to travel further than I wanted to. I also have the private insurance just in case I want a double diagnostic.

Nevertheless, for almost everything, I rely on the public system and it works pretty well. I had some kind of pneumonia and had to be in hospital for 3 days. I have read someone in this thread comment that even if you are insured you have to pay part of the cost of your treatment. In Spain, we don't have to pay anything when we receive treatment. That is, we don't pay anything extra apart from income/social security taxes from our monthly wage. When I get insurance I expect the insurance company to pay everything for me.

I think that the main problem in the US is that there is not a lot of negotiation power for insurance companies to take the prices down. If you see the article I link, in Japan prices are taken down by the government if negotiations with suppliers fail. The thing about healthcare is that demand is infinite because there are no alternative products, so, you either buy it or die.

What happens when the patient refuses to pay?

I've treated snake bites for some of the most venomous snakes on Earth (live in Queensland, Australia) and it's really not that complicated nor should it be that expensive. And this is in a country with a diverse range of highly venomous snakes and low population.

Clearly there were complications here, perhaps due to delay in getting treatment or sourcing anti-venom and as soon as you hit an ICU, costs do escalate rapidly, but $83 000 for meds and the overall cost is just plain crazy.

If this happened in rural Australia, you would be flown to the closest hospital by emergency helicopter, flown by The Flying doctors to a tertiary care hospital (if required), which could be 1000+ km away. You would be seen immediately in ED, transferred to ICU if required for as long as necessary, surgery if required (assuming serious complications), returned to a medical ward for convalescence, provided all necessary medications, physiotherapy etc, or anything else required for treatment.

Your bill on discharge, $0.

just another reason why Im glad I live in New Zealand and not America as this isn't a problem here with healthcare plus we don't have snakes here.

As I stated before in this thread the bill seems to indicate the patient was only treated for 6 days, as it says "service date 07/04/15 to 07/09/15", but maybe I'm reading this wrong. I don't know, I would expect a far longer recovery/treatment time in case of major complications that required very special medication.

Looks like I stumbled across the article about this.

Yeah, he was bitten trying to take a selfie with a rattlesnake.

Here's what we do know based on that photo: The bulk of his hospital bill—$83,000 of it— is due to pharmacy charges. Specifically, charges for the antivenin used to treat the bite. KGTV reports that Fassler depleted the antivenin supplies at two local hospitals during his five-day visit. Nobody expects antivenin to be cheap. But $83,000?   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/20/this-153000-rattlesnake-bite-is-everything-wrong-with-american-health-care/

Privatization of the hospitals.

We need single payer and to clamp down on hospitals.

someone has to pay the bill...    we dont know what happend, maybe he had to get some special medication.     but thats not important in my eyes, the other costs are just jokingly high for 6 days. they needed more than 10k per day, without medication.

Costs are covered by the government, obviously paid for through taxes, but your personal out of pocket expenses would be $0.