I've lived in Germany since 1999. In 2006 I was working in Miami for business when I was diagnosed with pericarditis and had to have a surprise heart surgery. I was 36 at the time and thought I had a bad cold. I was at the hospital almost a week and the costs were over $100,000.00. I repeatedly called my German insurance company, and they insured me that I was covered for up to 3 months outside of Germany. I was instructed to provide all of the hospital bills and informed that I'd be reimbursed, but that I'd be responsible for paying the hospital back. I returned to Germany, submitted the reams of bills and sure enough over 80k EUR was in my checking account(!) 3 weeks later. That was the easy part. It took me over 6 weeks to actually pay the bills. The process was byzantine and there was very little transparency or logic to all of the charges. Collections agencies were calling me, and when I snapped back, clearly not intimidated and irritated that TRYING TO PAY had become a full time job, they dropped their bullying schtick. It really made my heart to go out to those who couldn't afford care. An Illness like the one I had is terrifying and life changing, how cruel to have to suffer a personal financial catastrophe on top of such an experience. FIX THIS!