Women held hostage in Mexico, can't pay bill
 

A women, a US citizen, who suffered a stroke while atttending her daughters wedding, is now in a Mexican hospital. The bill is now over $100,000 and the hospital is demanding full payment before they release her. An immigrant, here in the USA, would get balloons, candy, and a get well card. What's wrong with this pictute?

Define: "Release"...........I'd walk out the door......

So basically they've built a wall around her and they're looking to get someone else to pay for it. Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?

Why on earth didnt she take out travel insurance?

Hyperbole much?

Not hyperbole, entirely accurate.

That makes sense. However from what I know about med ins claims the last policy I had stated that the insured must pay up front and get reimbursed from insurance co.

As for the best foreign country to get sick in I can highly recommend Ireland. Several hours in emergency and insertion of a catheter including ambulance ride to the hospital was less than $200 can. :)

wow..$100K seems low right? here it would be triple that for a long hospital stay.

Visit Mexico! What could possibly go wrong!

As a youngin we would run south of the boarder and drink and smoke till we puked.

Going to mexico the way things are now? No way!

Minor point.

She's not an immigrant.

She's a tourist.

The difference is permanence of residency.

While Hospitals / ER's here in the US do write off debt it's not automatic.

It's going to depend pretty much on the individuals ability to pay which is made more likely, or not, based in part on residency.

Private hospital in Mexico. Private hospitals do not take insurance in Mexico. Private hospitals bill 100% before the patient can leave, the patient can then send paperwork to their insurance company.

This isn't new, it's not unique, and it's something that people need to learn about before traveling.

If she went to one of the public hospitals, they might have billed insurance, but she'd probably be dead right now, so there's that.

Really? U S hopitals writing off debt? They dump people in the streets with no insurance...

Exactly. Years ago, heard about an American in a rental car who was going through an intersection and a woman ran the red light and t-boned him. She died.

He was thrown in jail. This was before traffic/surveillance cameras that might have shown the woman was in the wrong.

Lots of wrangling with the corrupt police and Mexican lawyers and over $40K later as I remember it, he was released.

It's gotta be even worse now. Too many other places to visit that are way less sketchy. If I had a kid that wanted to get married in Mexico, they'd do it knowing I wouldn't be there.

And you can get off my lawn, too. :mad:

Well, we could ship lots of our leeches up your way so they can be taken care of. If just 30% would just pay their damn medical bills or have insurance, our system would breath easy again.

They treat them for insignificant things and we all pay the price. I have two family members that work in ERs, the stories they tell make me sick.

Stealthn, yes I know I can HARDLY WALK PAST ANY HOSPITAL IN ATLANTA GA for all the DEAD BODIES THAT ARE JUST DUMPED OUT ON THE SIDEWALK. My wife is always late for work at the inner city hospital she works at BECAUSE OF ALL THE BODIES STACKED UP ON THE SIDEWALK. Not to mention the ER is filled to capacity with people, who they HAVE TO TREAT to save LIFE, LIMB, EYESITE, or BIRTH of a CHILD. (Because it's the LAW and its posted in every hospital in AMERICA in both English and SPANISH and it has been the LAW since 1996 passage of the HIPPA act).