What a wonderful story, thanks so much for posting it. Now lets deal with the reality.
The man made a personal decision to go for a cheaper plan, knowing it covered less. A fine choice but it left him paying out of pocket. So what would have most likely have happened if hte had decided to stay with his ACA plan? Well given most of the plans are really not much better in terms of initial coverage, he would still be stuck with the same bill. At best he might have had a gold plan with a small deductable of say $1500, but we really don't know given the story fails to say. But lets assume he was just as price sensitive when he purchase his ACA plan, and picked a cheaper one with a $6000 deductable. So he's STILL out of pocket for the hospital bill.
The story was written to mislead and based on the post I am replying to, it seems it worked.
The only correct path forward is free market health care! Hospitals only collect 18% of what they bill the Insurance companies.(unless they can sue class action for more then they get 35%) You as the patient are expected to pay your share based on the full original billing say 20%. So the patient really pays the Hospital in full, the insurance company pays nothing and the rest is BS.
It's a beautiful world.
