Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

In Bruce's list, many individuals had recently moved to this community, and the reason they relocated here was simple: most were impoverished due to illness.

Many people might find it difficult to comprehend the exorbitant level of medical bills in America. To summarize in the simplest terms, even if you are a billionaire, you could become impoverished due to illness overnight.

Some might consider this an exaggeration, but in reality, the costs associated with American medical bills have completely surpassed normal limits.

For example, in the major cities on the East Coast of the United States, the cost for a standard hospital consultation can range into several hundreds of US dollars.

Note that this is just the consultation fee, meaning seeing a doctor alone would cost several hundred dollars.

After discussing your condition and deciding to undergo treatment, you would be charged separately based on the medications and equipment used. A basic CT scan without any insurance coverage would cost about 6,000 to 8,000 dollars.

After spending that money on the scan and taking the results to a doctor, you would face another consultation fee of several hundred dollars.

And when the doctor devises your treatment plan based on the scan, you would still need to pay separately for different services.

For instance, if you need a fracture treated, you would pay for materials, the doctor's services, additional fees for each check-up, and when the cast is ready to be removed, further consultation and procedure fees are required.

While the whole process may not sound too outrageous at first, if each step cost several thousands of dollars, a simple fracture treatment could end you with a medical bill of around 60,000 to 80,000 dollars.

That's just for standard medical services. If it were an emergency, the cost could increase by approximately five to eight times.

Certainly, some might think if it's this outrageous, wouldn't all Americans just die at home from illness?

However, the actual reason they have raised the bill charges to such extremes is to compel people to buy insurance.

Taking the insurance offered by American Universities as an example, after purchasing comprehensive insurance, the bill could reduce to about one-twentieth of the original. If you include the cost of the insurance, you would only need to pay about 5-10% of the medical bill.

Although spending several thousand dollars on a fracture might still seem absurd, if it's just a regular inflammation or a cold, the costs are within an affordable range for most people.

But this is only the ideal scenario, as most ordinary people cannot afford very comprehensive insurance, and there are many costly equipment pieces that are not covered by any insurance company. You can only pray you don't contract a disease related to such equipment, or else the bill would be terrifying.

The most absurd part is that many equipment pieces and medications are specific to certain hospitals. If you purchased Package A but your first hospital visit uses Equipment B, unfortunately, the cost of the equipment is not reimbursed.

If you want the equipment cost reimbursed, you must find a hospital that has Equipment A, but remember, the fee for the first consultation won't be reimbursed.

After arriving at a hospital with Equipment A, if too many people are using it and you need to wait, you'll just have to endure. If you don't want to wait, you'll have to look for other hospitals in different states that have the equipment.

But using the equipment in another state isn't reimbursed either.

Equipment might be manageable, but the key issue falls on medications. If you buy insurance from a certain company, you can only use specific brands of medication. If your local state doesn't sell the needed medication, you would have to buy it from another state, but it won't be reimbursed.

Many people have realized the trickery—if within five states only one sells a certain medication, which is relatively common and has a high profit margin, the people of the other four states must buy it from that one state.

The residents of other states have insurance that covers this medication, but since it's not sold in their states, it's not reimbursed. The only state with this medication doesn't include it under any insurance plans, so reimbursement is still unattainable.

The insurance company ruling these five states essentially makes money standing still.

This is just a simple example of shifting responsibilities. The intricate insurance contracts are almost always traps. When it comes to needing medical care, almost no American can perfectly claim insurance; most compromise and let some go, just trying to break even on their premiums.

Even so, about one-third of Americans can't even make back what they've paid in insurance premiums, essentially never having succeeded in claiming insurance even once.

Some might say, with such a deceptive system, why buy insurance at all?

But without it, since hospitals have already inflated their bills due to collaborations with insurance companies, a minor illness may cost tens of thousands of dollars, an amount simply unaffordable for most.

The American healthcare system epitomizes the notion of "choosing the lesser of two evils": having insurance doesn't guarantee reimbursements, and not having it means you can't afford to get sick. Thus, people can only gamble with their insurance premiums.

Siltex Medical Insurance Company had clearly engaged in such activities frequently; with just a casual online search, Bruce found five to six hundred insurance payment-related complaints in this city alone, all from the past year.

After filtering through them, Bruce identified about forty to fifty families who had received no compensation and, as a result, had slipped down the social ladder, most of these cases also involved loss of life.

Generally, hospitals would treat first and charge later, sending the bill after the treatment. Treating the first course of treatment is one thing, but those affected by bizarre incidents couldn't possibly be healed with just one or two treatments.

Without further insurance money, it's impossible to afford even the first treatment, let alone subsequent treatments. Thus, people were kicked out of hospitals to fend for themselves.

Bruce had just visited Ms. Theresa a few days ago, whose daughter was involved in a bizarre incident, suffering extensive burns throughout her body; however, due to vague insurance stipulations, the claim was denied by the insurance company.

The reason for the denial was approximately that, although she indeed experienced a bizarre incident, her burns were not related to it. Instead, someone accidentally ignited the curtains while escaping, and Ms. Theresa's daughter did not immediately run out; it wasn't directly caused by a monster, so they refused to compensate.

Indeed, in most states in America, if there is an opportunity to avoid danger and one doesn't take it promptly and proactively, the insurance won't cover it, and there might even be accusations of insurance fraud.

Ms. Theresa, in order to treat her daughter, had spent all her savings and even divorced her husband. Her life fell drastically, forcing her to move from a middle-class neighborhood to a slum.

Victims like Ms. Theresa numbered about sixty this year alone, and all of them silently accepted their fate.

It's not that they wanted to accept it, but this kind of situation is too common; it's almost impossible to find anyone in America who hasn't experienced something similar.

When Bruce was working on the Gotham improvement project to enhance the livelihood of the residents, he tried to introduce better insurance services, but the whole process was a mess, and it ended disastrously.

To say that new insurance was introduced is true, but it only improved the situation from previously no insurance companies daring to cover Gothamites. However, the packages and terms offered no benefits.

Even for someone as wealthy as Bruce, having the most professional team of lawyers, it was hard to gain an advantage in disputes with medical insurance companies; at best, they broke even, and concessions still had to be made.

After all, following the decline of the manufacturing industry in America, the position of manufacturing and industrial giants like Wayne Enterprises had gradually declined. Even though Wayne Enterprises was still part of the military-industrial complex, the military part was almost gone; there wasn't much of a 'complex' left.

Even Bruce Wayne found it difficult to extract anything substantial from the medical insurance giants, let alone ordinary people.

These people might resign themselves to their fate, but Bruce had no intention of letting them. Though not many in number, the cases they faced were extreme, with many facing the death of loved ones. The events were recent, and the intense emotions hadn't fully dissipated.

Bruce and the Pale Knight, dressed in expensive suits, wearing designer watches and jewelry, walked door-to-door, drawing lots of sarcasm and mockery, fully charging the air with hatred.

Furthermore, Bruce subtly let slip that Old Sirteck would be attending a press interview, mentioning that besides him, there would be famous hosts and experts from the medical insurance industry, along with many sharp-tongued journalists.

After fulfilling his task, Bruce parked the luxurious car back in its original spot, got into his former pickup truck, and drove to the park next to the news broadcasting center, where he found a secluded spot to park.

He walked around and noticed quite a few journalists already staking out; they parked near the television broadcasting center, and with their windows half-open, they scanned passers-by with eagle-like sharpness.

Bruce and the Pale Knight, dressed conspicuously upscale, immediately caught their attention.

Bruce and the Pale Knight entered a coffee shop, and almost immediately, a man in a hoodie came out of a black car parked by the roadside, holding a square microphone.

Across the street, a professionally dressed woman emerged; the two exchanged glances and both looked towards Bruce and the Pale Knight at the coffee shop's front desk.

Bruce casually ordered two coffees and chose a window seat, ensuring he was clearly visible; before long a professionally dressed woman approached smilingly and said, "Good afternoon, may I ask if you are staff from the television broadcasting center?"

Bruce eyed the woman, deliberately letting his gaze linger on her refined makeup for two seconds before responding enthusiastically, "No, ma'am, we are public relations officers from Siltex Medical Insurance Company…"

A gleam crossed the woman's eyes as she said, "I'm a host from the TV station. The window seats are all taken; can I join your table?"

"Of course, having such a beautiful lady makes the afternoon even better," Bruce said, leaning on the table and staring unwaveringly at her face.

The woman sat down, smiled at the coffee server, then turned back to Bruce and said, "Your boss has an interview tomorrow morning; he must be well-prepared, right? I've only recently transferred here and haven't met such a dignitary before; naturally, I'm a bit nervous."

"Oh, it's nothing, ma'am, our boss is very approachable. Today he even had me try to appease some clients who failed to receive insurance compensation…"

The woman's eyes lit up as she asked, "Appease? How do you appease them?"