If you are a tourist from Europe to the US and have to be admitted to a hospital you either have to present a credit card or you insurer wires the monies or they don't lift a finger. I have just had a client on a cruise with us who developed a thrombis while on route from the Caribbean via Newark to Germany. He had to be treated in New Jesery. The hospital would only treat him after holding my company credit card. In the mean time I organized our insurer to transfer the funds. Strangely enough when I was talking to the hospital adminitration doing all the paper work they even knew the insurer and had done business with him in the passed. The hospital even said that these guys are great at paying up quickly. The hospital had a money garanty for 15.000 USD with in 45 min. However they would have waited for it had I not laid up our credit card to get them started.

Maybe if one isn't from north america things are different. But since I have had several clients in medical facilites in the US I do have several experiances to pick from - the latest being the Thrombosis case. That is one of the main reasons most europeans take out insurance. Very few opt out here and practically none when one heads for the US. Because it can get very expensive very quickly.