What happens if you wreck your car, break your leg, need surgery, but . . .

The NHS pays for it all.

They send you the bill.

Here in Michigan the auto insurance would pay for all medical costs related to the accident. It would not matter if it was full coverage or just PL and PD.

They'd send you the bill, and you would be charged approximately 2/3 more than a person with the identical medical situation who had insurance.

You get a bill. YOu declare bankruptcy or you pay it over time or you have $$ in the bank and pay it at once.

Insurance only pays up to the policy limits. If the policy limit is 100,000/300,000, then the most the policy will pay for a single victim accident is $100,000. On the other hand, if the accident involves driving onto a crowded playground and injuring 30 kids, each kid will receive a maximum of $10,000 (total payout would be $300,000).

Statistics for 2007 bankruptcy filings show that 62% of people filing for bankruptcy are doing so for medically related costs.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

mscelina said:

They'd send you the bill, and you would be charged approximately 2/3 more than a person with the identical medical situation who had insurance.

Click to expand...

That's a bit misleading. Hospitals charge the insured and the uninsured the same amount, it's just that the insurance companies negotiate a discounted rate for themselves (at times so low it doesn't cover the expense of the treatments), so what they pay in the end is different from what the uninsured would be expected to pay. Not saying it's a fair system, just clarifying how it works.