Trapped in America's Safety Net

Marcella’s and Logan’s ICU stays up to that point: $ 474,000 for Marcella, $ 111,000 for Logan. The baby spent another week in the NICU, while Marcella was in the Mercy ICU for three more weeks, followed by the three-month rehabilitation hospital stay. With private insurance, even if they didn’t hit annual or lifetime caps, Marcella and Dave may well have had a 20 percent coinsurance requirement, which would have totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars. Either way, they would have had to have declared bankruptcy.