I don't think this has been covered yet, but your insurance plan will usually not pay the entire hospital the bill. Most hospitals have contracts with insurers and agree to accept pennies on the dollar for the bills. In some cases I have seen hospitals accept less than half of the actual bill, and they "adjust" the remainder off. So the amount your insurance eventually pays is much less than the bill. Here is a recent example. The doctor's bill was well over $24,000.00. The insurance paid $6,000ish. The remainder was written off. So even though it looked like the bill was $24,000, the amount paid was only $6,000, and the customer was not charged the remainder.