To be sick of people starting to fund me pages when they go on holiday without travel insurance and can’t afford medical bills when they end up in hospital?

[AngeloMysterioso]

A woman with chronic pulmonary disease and mobility issues couldn’t afford the travel insurance she needed for her four week holiday to Disney World in Florida with her sons and grandson. So she went anyway, without any travel insurance, and you can guess what happens next… she caught covid and flu, then developed pneumonia, and is now in a critical condition in hospital.

And of course, her family has set up a go fund me to go begging to the public to cover the considerable financial cost of this woman’s utter foolishness.

AIBU to think if you can’t afford the travel insurance, you don’t go on the fucking holiday?? Especially if you have pre-existing conditions which make you particularly susceptible to falling seriously ill?

She spent five days in intensive care and is now in critical care. This guy ended up paying $8000 per day for his ICU stay in a Florida hospital - and that was just the room without medical treatment and drugs included, two years ago.

If the critical care room is charged on the basis of being a non-ICU room, then you start to get the sense of why her insurance quote was 3 grand - given that it doesn't even cover the costs of half a day in the hospital where she is.

I suspect her medical bill is already into six figures, even without the quote for medflighting her back to the UK.

https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2022/08/12/for-patients-in-florida--hospital-bills-rank-among-the-highest-in-the-nation

I was referring to GoFundMe appeals to bring a body home, when travel insurance was not taken out, or doesn't cover repatriation of a corpse.

I must be clearer when posting. 😊

No I’m agreeing with you- plenty of posters saying you must have insurance for repatriation but not at all- you don’t have to be repatriated

Yes repatriation of a dead body is not mandatory, but I think other posters may have been referring to those who take ill abroad and need to be air vacced (evac by special medical plane sorry for the dense description!). I suppose it's one thing to die abroad and be cremated there, quite another to be very ill or paralysed etc. and need to get back home.

A person might get away with not having travel insurance if they pop their clogs in Benidorm, but if they are critically injured and need to get home, then travel insurance is the only way that's going to happen in a medivac situation.

I went to the states and wanted to make sure I was covered for absolutely everything

i used allclear and disclosed everything from menorrhagia to Diabetes. As they were a specialist firm they only asked key questions not ALL the unnecessary questions other insurers do because they offer standard, generic insurance. It only cost me £150 more for the trip

there has got to be a reason why this woman, what after many years of travel suddenly decided not to pay for insurance. It was a gamble she took that didn’t pay off. Them the chances you take

i do feel sorry for her daughter though

there has got to be a reason why this woman, what after many years of travel suddenly decided not to pay for insurance. It was a gamble she took that didn’t pay off. Them the chances you take

Do we know for a fact she took out travel insurance the 20 previous times she travelled to Florida?

If she hadn’t fallen sick on this trip she would’ve came back fine and no-one would’ve known.

She may have incredibly “bad luck” and this is the first time she’s not arranged insurance, but personally I doubt it’s the first time. It’s just the first time she’s got sick while not having travel insurance.

@angrymenopausal My guess is that her family will be asked to pay something before she leaves, because as @AquaPeer says, it's difficult to chase debts abroad. Hospitals here in the US accept credit cards so they might say give us $10K and we'll write the rest off, for example.

I'm just speculating, of course, but I can't see an American hospital letting her off completely, we all have to pay here!

The medical provider would need to bring legal action in the UK against her and enforce that judgment here. For medical bills, which tend to be enormous, that would be worth their while.