Reply #12: And clearly he had other problems too, which is why he couldn't get insurance [View All]

[Recursion]

His sister said he had a pre-existing condition that prevented his being able to buy insurance. Generally people who are otherwise healthy do not get pneumonia in the first place.

Pneumonia shouldn't cost $400,000? Why the hell not? By the time someone gets to the hospital with it, you usually have to do heroic measures to try to save them and those can be extremely expensive. Particularly if there's some other problem you have to try to manage, which there was in his case (no idea; could be HIV/AIDS, could be some other immunological problem, but if he's getting pneumonia at his age he's already sick with something and that's going to make it harder to treat).