A $52,112 Air Ambulance Ride: Coronavirus Patients Battle Surprise BillsCongress was close to a solution before getting hit with millions of dollars of ads from private-equity firms. Then the pandemic struck.Air ambulance charges are often the most costly type of surprise medical bills.

An intubated coronavirus patient was declining rapidly when doctors decided to airlift her to a hospital with better critical care resources.“It’s life or death,” the family of the 60-year-old woman recalled being told when it happened in April. “We have to transfer her now.”The patient was flown by helicopter from one Philadelphia hospital to another 20 miles away. She spent six weeks at the new hospital and survived.

When she came home, a letter arrived: The air ambulance company said she owed $52,112 for the trip.Last year, Congress abandoned its attempt to prevent surprise bills like this one, and coronavirus patients are now paying the price. Bills submitted to The New York Times show that patients often face surprise charges from out-of-network doctors, ambulances and medical laboratories they did not pick or even realize were involved in their care.

Northern Comment  – This kind of “surprise” was going to be stopped by legislation in Congress. At the 11th hour the legislation, which would have capped fees for certain serviced like air ambulances, fell as private equity firms mounted a massive campaign to spike the legislation. They then invested millions in things like air ambulances given their was no cap on what they could charge a customer who was desperate or unconscious or both.

Excesses like this will only promote support for a single payer provider.People will see that some thing like the NHS is not the first step toward communism, but the first away from rentier capitalism.