Self-insured worker with high-deductible overwhelmed by cost of hospital episode.

Even if they’d known how expensive it would be, Dave Minar doesn’t think they would have done anything different.

Jim, Minar’s hired man was milking a cow on the New Prague dairy farm a couple of months ago when he lost consciousness and collapsed. They called the local ambulance and the fire department came too. The 51-year-old was transported to Queen of Peace Hospital in New Prague and was stable enough to go home the same day. Two days later, he was back milking cows. Turned out the episode was caused by low potassium levels created by the low blood pressure medicine the man was taking.

A story with a happy ending? Not really. Jim carried individual health insurance with a $10,000 deductible. The ending of this story was a bill that came to nearly $12,000 after adding up the hospital, emergency, ambulance and fire department charges. But, no one knew it wasn’t a heart attack and everyone agrees that calling for help was the right thing to do.

“I asked him about the coverage,” Minar said, “but Jim said the high-deductible was all he could afford. I would love to have coverage for my employees, but I have checked with a number of companies and it’s really too expensive for something that can really make a difference in someone’s costs.”