Quite a few people on Bruce's list had only recently moved into this neighborhood. The reason they had come here was simple: most had been impoverished by illness.
Many people might find it hard to imagine just how astronomical medical bills in the United States could be. The simplest way to put it was this: even if you were a billionaire, one night of illness was enough to make you poor again.
Some might think that was an exaggeration, but in truth, the way American medical bills were calculated had long since gone beyond anything normal.
For example, in major cities on the American East Coast, simply entering a hospital for a consultation normally cost several hundred dollars.
And note, that was only the consultation fee. In other words, merely seeing a Doctor once cost you several hundred dollars.
After explaining your condition and deciding to undergo treatment, you were charged separately depending on the medication and equipment used. Even the most basic CT scan, with no insurance coverage at all, cost roughly six to eight thousand dollars.
After spending that money to get the scans done, bringing them to the Doctor cost you another few hundred dollars in consultation fees.
And when the Doctor formulated your next treatment plan based on the scans, you still had to pay separate fees for every category of service.
For instance, if you fractured a bone and needed treatment, aside from the cost of materials, you had to pay the Doctor treating you. Every follow-up visit came with an additional charge, and once the wound had healed and it was confirmed that the splint could be removed, you had to pay another consultation fee and procedure fee.
The whole process did not sound outrageously unreasonable, but the problem was that if every step