Amount billed: $35,539.00; Amount you owe: $0. This is why we need Universal Healthcare Coverage.
I'm not a prolific poster here, but a few people know I had breast cancer, which was diagnosed in December 2013. I'm a lucky gal, because it was DCIS, a Stage 0 (zero) cancer.
I had a yearly screening mammogram, a follow-up mammogram, an ultrasound, a bilateral breast MRI, stereotactic biopsy, another mammogram for needle placement prior to surgery, a lumpectomy, a reconstructive bilateral breast lift (are you bored by this list yet?), a 30-hour hospital stay, a CT scan, several follow-up appointments with my surgeons, radiation therapy (radiation alone cost about $13,500 for 25 treatments) and physical therapy.
I'm even luckier because my husband works for a large (and hated, I don't blame anyone for the hate!) big company and we have health insurance. We pay some every month, and we have a co-pay, but when it counts (see above), we're covered.
EVERYONE in this country should have the quality of care I got. I have a husband, three daughters, a son-in-law, and two great dogs and friends who love me and who would miss me if I died of cancer, but my prognosis is excellent because of early detection and surgery/treatment.
EVERYONE in this country has a family or a friend or a cat or a dog who loves them. Everyone has a precious life. It shouldn't be only the "lucky ones" who get to beat cancer.
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and I'm glad you were able to get the care you needed. 
Everyone else, thanks for the nice thoughts 
This is great!!
that are marginally higher than our own. At least they get something for their tax dollars besides war, spying, and subsidies to rich corporations and banksters.
I hope "Obamacare" has improved things. My wife and I experienced a COBRA plan timing out, and then uninsurability.
Fortunately my wife who was very ill at the time and getting treatment at Stanford (not breast cancer, something else) was accepted to our state's high risk (socialism!) plan before we hit rock bottom. That which doesn't kill you makes stronger, but never in a way any sane person would volunteer for. Random shit falls out of the sky.
It did teach me one thing -- that medical debt collectors have the worst job in the world unless they are sociopaths. I learned to be nice to them. The ones who were not sociopaths appreciated my affability. The ones who were sociopaths hated it like water splashed on the wicked witches and warlocks of Oz. I could almost hear the sociopath debt collectors screaming, "I'm melting!!!" just before they hung up on me or transfered me to their dead-soul-zombie-monotone-speaking supervisors.
Worse, today's telephone medical debt collectors are often no-soul-electronic-robots and you have to go through a long menu system to talk to an actual human being who won't know anything or have any powers to negotiate the medical debt which was mostly, but not entirely, paid by insurance.
