I just found this alarming article

[Jeunemaitre]

You have me confused.  Your grand total cumulative amount that you can claim for health costs is a mere $250,000 ?  Or would that be 'per claim/incident' ?  And is that a standard across the U.S. of A.?  Or is that dependent on the insurance company that you select?

You said in another part of this thread:
Now if you had had health insurance at that time, you would not have had to carry any debt, right?  Your health insurance provider would have done any negotiating and you would not have known about it, I would expect.  But, having had that claim, it would have obviated any chance for future claims?????

If I am misunderstanding what you meant, then that one additional year (that you didn't carry insurance and should have) would have balanced all the years that have subsequently paid and not claimed.  And that doesn't sound like a racket to me.

Sorry to interject into a discussion that started without me, but I have a similar cap on expenditure from my health coverage, but mine is an annual limit. I'm not sure what the amount is, but it's set at a certain dollar amount per covered individual (my wife and I), and is debited each time I incur a general medical expense. For other types of expenses (particularly infertility benefits) there is a bank of dollars (in this case $100,000) which is reduced each time a service I use generates a claim with a diagnosis of infertility. Once that limit is reached (1, 5, or 8 years from now) the company will pay no more for any claim for a fertility related service.

The main reason that I signed up for insurance is the "reasonable and customary" rates. The PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) I belong to has an established list of physicians that have agreed to bill at a negotiated rate. I go to my in-network doctor, give them my insurance info, and they submit the bill to the insurance company. The insurance company tells me how much to pay, and the doctor sends me a bill. I recently had some blood testing done and got the EOB (Explanation Of Benefits) from the insurance company indicating that the claim was charged at $157 for one of the tests, but that this was in excess of the negotiated "reasonable and customary" rate, and that the charge was reduced to the negotiated amount of $35.17, which I was then responsible for as part of my deductible. God forgive [the US insurance companies]: they know not what they do.