This is not as big a deal as the headline shows. No one would pay that much.

The unfortunate reality is American healthcare is geared to generate humongous bills but that’s just the starting point. Normally your insurance company will then negotiate it down. If you don’t have insurance, you can usually get them to write off huge amounts.

One of the underlying problems is not everyone has insurance but everyone will get at least emergency care. Hospitals know there will be a lot of bills that can never be paid, so their initial bill to everyone needs yo account for that loss.

That and the general extractive nature of the us health care system, the massive number of layers and middlemen that all need to show a profit

But clearly the problem here is the non-us insurance company not dealing with it until forced to nine months later

Worst case scenario- go home and never come bs k. That bill is not following you to another country