據美媒報導，美國西雅圖一名70歲新冠病毒重症患者治癒出院，日前他收到一份收費項目近3000個，共181頁的巨額帳單，帳單總額高達1122501.04美元。
Remember Michael Flor, the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient who, when he unexpectedly did not die, was jokingly dubbed 「the miracle child?」
Now they can also call him the million-dollar baby.
還記得入院時間最長的新冠肺炎患者麥可·弗洛嗎？他沒被奪走性命，還被戲稱為「奇蹟之子」。現在又可以叫他「百萬寶貝」了。
Flor, 70, who came so close to death in the spring that a night-shift nurse held a phone to his ear while his wife and kids said their final goodbyes, is recovering nicely these days at his home in West Seattle. But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day.
今年春天，70歲的弗洛曾與死神擦肩，一名夜班護士甚至把電話放在他耳邊，方便他和妻兒告別。幸運的是，這些天他在西雅圖西部的家中逐漸恢復健康。但他說，當他收到醫療保險的帳單時，他的心臟幾乎再次衰竭。
「I opened it and said 『holy [bleep]!』 「 Flor says.
弗洛說：「我打開帳單時簡直驚呆了」。
The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.
他的新冠肺炎治療費用總共110萬美元。確切地說，是1122501.04元。這份帳單更像一本書，因為足足有181頁。
這份181頁的帳單上羅列了各項費用的明細，所幸弗洛購買了醫療保險，絕大部分費用不需要他來支付，但這也是因為他得的是新冠肺炎而不是其他疾病。
But for now it’s got him and his family and friends marveling at the extreme expense, and bizarre economics, of American health care.
目前，他和他的家人和朋友們對美國醫療保健的極端消費和奇怪的經濟狀況感到驚訝。
Flor was in Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah with COVID-19 for 62 days, so he knew the bill would be a doozy. He was unconscious for much of his stay, but once near the beginning his wife Elisa Del Rosario remembers him waking up and saying: 「You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.」
弗洛因感染新冠肺炎在伊瑟闊市的瑞典醫療中心住院62天，他料到費用會很高昂。住院期間他大部分時間都處於昏迷狀態，但他的妻子艾麗莎·德爾羅薩裡奧記得，有一次他醒來後對她說：「你得把我弄出去，我們付不起這個錢。」
Just the charge for his room in the intensive care unit was billed at $9,736 per day. Due to the contagious nature of the virus, the room was sealed and could only be entered by medical workers wearing plastic suits and headgear. For 42 days he was in this isolation chamber, for a total charged cost of $408,912.
他在重症監護室的房間費用是每天9736美元。由於該病毒具有傳染性，房間被密封，只有穿著防護服的醫務人員才能進入。他在這個隔離室裡呆了42天，總收費為408,912美元。
He also was on a mechanical ventilator for 29 days, with the use of the machine billed at $2,835 per day, for a total of $82,215. About a quarter of the bill is drug costs.
他還使用了29天的機械呼吸機，每天的費用為2835美元，共計82,215美元。大約四分之一的帳單是藥物費用。
The list of charges indirectly tells the story of Flor’s battle. For the two days when his heart, kidneys and lungs were all failing and he was nearest death, the bill runs for 20 pages and totals nearly $100,000 as doctors 「were throwing everything at me they could think of,」 Flor says.
這份帳單也間接地講述了弗洛與病毒的鬥爭。有兩天，他的心臟、腎臟和肺都衰竭了，離死亡很近，這部分的帳單長達20頁，總計近10萬美元，因為醫生們「把他們能想到的所有東西都給我用上了，」弗洛說。
In all, there are nearly 3,000 itemized charges, about 50 per day. Usually hospitals get paid only a portion of the amount they bill, as most have negotiated discounts with insurance companies. The charges don’t include the two weeks of recuperating he did in a rehab facility.
總共有近3000項收費項目，每天花費約50美元。通常，醫院的收費只是帳單金額的一部分，因為大多數醫院都與保險公司協商了折扣。這些收費還不包括他在康復機構所接受的兩周的治療。
Going through it all, Flor said he was surprised at his own reaction. Which was guilt.
弗洛說，經歷了這一切之後，令人驚奇的是，他的反應是內疚。
「I feel guilty about surviving,」 he says. 「There’s a sense of 『why me?』 Why did I deserve all this? Looking at the incredible cost of it all definitely adds to that survivor’s guilt.」
「我為自己活下來感到內疚，」他說。「有種『為什麼是我？我值得嗎？』的感覺。這些令人難以置信的開銷，大大增加了倖存者的負罪感。」
There also are special financial rules that apply only to COVID-19. Congress set aside more than $100 billion to help hospitals and insurance companies defray the costs of the pandemic, in part to encourage people to seek testing and treatment (including those with no insurance). As a result, Flor probably won’t have to pay even his Medicare Advantage policy’s out-of-pocket charges, which could have amounted to $6,000.
還有一些特別的金融政策只適用於新冠肺炎。國會撥出1000多億美元幫助醫院和保險公司支付疫情大流行的費用，一方面是為了鼓勵人們尋求檢測和治療(包括那些沒有保險的人)。因此，弗洛可能甚至都不用支付他的「醫保」外的自付費用，這筆費用可能高達6000美元。
The insurance industry has estimated treatment costs just for COVID-19 could top $500 billion, however, so Congress is being asked to step up with more money.
然而，保險行業估計，僅治療新冠肺炎的費用就可能超過5000億美元，因此國會被要求拿出更多的資金。
The writer David Lat got a $320,000 bill for his COVID-19 treatment, and also ended up paying nothing. Yet he heard from dozens of cancer and leukemia patients who have been hit with big bills or co-pays during this same time period.
作家大衛·拉特新冠病癒後收到了32萬美元的帳單，但最後卻分文未付。然而，在同一時期，他聽到數十名癌症和白血病患者的消息，他們有的收到了巨額帳單，有的自付部分費用高昂。
It’s like we’re doing an experiment for what universal health coverage might be like, but confining it to only this one illness.
這就像一個實驗，看看全民健康保險會是什麼樣子，但只限於一種疾病。
「Suffering from the novel coronavirus as opposed to cancer shouldn’t make a difference in terms of your financial burden,」 Lat wrote, in Slate. 「What you pay as a patient shouldn’t depend, in essence, on whether your disease has a good publicist.」
拉特在Slate雜誌上寫道：「與癌症相比，感染新冠不會對你的經濟負擔有什麼影響，從本質上說，作為一個病人，你的治療費用不應該取決於你的病是否有一個好的宣傳人員。」
Flor said he’s hyper-aware that somebody is paying his million-dollar bill — taxpayers, other insurance customers and so on.
弗洛表示，他非常清楚有人在為他的百萬帳單買單——納稅人、其他保險客戶等等。
「It was a million bucks to save my life, and of course I』d say that’s money well-spent,」 he says. 「But I also know I might be the only one saying that.」
他說：「花一百萬美元救了我的命，當然，我得說這錢花得值。但我也知道，可能只有我一個人這麼說。」