Paying the hospital bills

Seriously! I can't wait to have a situation where I need to pay a hospital bill of $1000 or so. My dad was telling me about all his experiences paying for bills which insurance didn't cover. All he had to do was sign a contract saying that he would pay what he could afford per month (in this case, $20--which was very true as now father of 2, making a combined $30,000 a year with my mom in 1990). Then he would pay whatever he could out of his paycheck every week even though it came out to be well more than the $20 a month (though rarely amounted to more than $100 a month).

The hospital had the gall to get impatient for his money and sent the bill to a bill collection agency. My father, keeping his own records, refused to pay said agency because he was abiding by the contract and he wasn't going to pay the interest that the agency could charge. By LAW medical bills cannot collect interest, but once it's sent to an agency it can, because the agency pays off your debt to the hospital and then it's just regular debt. This made for what I consider a FUN development. My dad continued to send his payments, weekly, to the hospital, even though they weren't sending him a bill. SINCE he was abiding by the contract there's not a dang thing they could do about it--can't take him to court for not paying his bill; can't instruct him to pay that agency for the same reason. The hospital had to deal with all the paperwork--sending the information to the agency, and paying all those people and no one was collecting that interest.

THAT, my dear, is sticking it to the man AND why I think medical bills are awesome--why WOULDN'T you want to pay them, haha.

But, a $1000 bill to be paid off in a year is one thing. That's what was left after insurance pays. EVERYONE MUST have insurance or spending one's life sending $20 a week to pay off a million dollar bill will be a waste to ALL.