the american medical system is a mess

and the following article illustrates exactly WHY (such as if a person has insurance, their insurance company usually pays way LESS than half the cost the health care providers would charge an uninsured individual. effed up or what?)

Fainting in This Country Can Carry a $10,000 Price Tag

By Kirk Nielsen, Miller-McCune.com

There's really no good time or place for a blackout, though some are significantly worse than others. Mine, one subzero evening in downtown St. Paul, Minn., last December, fell solidly on the inauspicious side of the spectrum.

The Level 2 lobby of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts was teeming with people waiting for the second half of a fine production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas to begin. I was standing with my mom, sister and her three young-adult kids. Through the windows of a dazzling curtain-wall that spans the front of the trapezoidal building, I was admiring the golden lights on the canopy of trees in the park across the street. On the warm side of the glass, a professional trio of carolers had just finished a short intermission set. I was in a good mood; a fantastic woman in Duluth was expecting my call after the show to finalize plans for our first date the next night.

Suddenly, I felt weirdly lightheaded, so I turned to hasten to my seat. I took three steps, got the spins and took a nosedive, just missing the edge of a wine and coffee bar. Upon impact, I regained some consciousness and sat half-sprawled with my elbows on the carpet. A short-haired middle-age woman was crouching next to me, asking me if I knew my name, what day of the week it was, where I was. I did, which eliminated the possibility of stroke. "You blacked out ... I'm not a doctor ... That happens to me ... You should lay down," I recall her saying. .......