re health hospital costs, personal anecdotes
A fellow I knew from Montreal went to San Fran about 25 years ago, rented a bicycle, had a dumb go over the handlebars slow accident and hit his wrist. Was ok, but it kept hurting and finally went to a hospital. Had x-ray, a consult, had a cast put on, etc, was out in x hours, not too many. Came home and then received the hospital bill--I dont remember the exact number, but it was prob 3 or 4000. He then had to do all the paper work to get the Quebec (province) health care to cover it, and I suspect from old memories that he had to pay a small amount himself.
My parents were camping in New England and still remember the story told by the campground operator of having to sell the house to pay for some treatment.
My wife recently was at a conference in the states, and a fellow conference attendee had a similar story---now the usual response is that these people didnt have proper insurance, and thats a whole other topic, but the main thing here is that in my family, we have met Americans who had life changing financial pressures brought upon by having bad luck of cancer this or cancer that or whatever, and not "having proper" insurance, ie fine print etc.
sure , its anecdotal, and very possibly the details are wrong, but they do stick in my mind about the possible consequences of travelling in the states and not having proper health insurance.
The broken wrist example is the best one in my opinion to bring up, a minor dumb accident, not a hospital stay, but still something that could run into thousands if you fell off and got well scraped up, but essentially ok--a realistic eventuality of riding a bike while on a trip.