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1 month agoThe deductible is an amount that you pay out of pocket before insurance starts covering anything. So if insurance doesn’t get billed, the money doesn’t count towards the deductible. This may make it difficult to lower the bill at all, it really depends on how much the entire bill is compared to your deductible. If you can’t pay it though, they’ll have to give you an affordable payment plan. Definitely negotiate and don’t take a loan out from some other source to cover.
The article goes into this in great depth on both sides of the issue, but this is probably the most direct answer.
To address the “taxpayers expense” part, it’s way more expensive to provide major health care than small amounts of vodka.