This is a bit ridiculous, because part of the reason that providers are overcharging you is that they need huge finance departments to get their cash back from you or your insurer, which wouldn't be necessary if you had a single government insurer.
Also, the quote from the Courtney Barnett song about Australian healthcare only applies if you somehow end up in a private emergency department, which is extraordinary unlikely since they're often underprepared for critical emergencies and for non-critical stuff you can ask to be taken to a public hospital in the ambulance. You're likely to get charged a couple of thousand dollars for the ambulance ride (depends on state; in mine, membership of the ambulance org is $53 a year and automatically covers you for any ambulance trip Australia-wide, no denials; others are free), plus a few hundred for the consultation. I believe Medicare will pay for some private care in an emergency department.
She's talking about calling 000 because of an asthma attack but also alludes to a panic attack, which means she's not rationally discussing how much it will cost. It's not a scenario where she will have actual crippling debt like it would be in the US. A non-artistic non-panic-attack analysis of the situation is that she'd pay literally nothing as a public patient in a public hospital, and would pay a few thousand in the unlikely possibility she got admitted to a private hospital. Which, yes, would suck, but her worst case is an order of magnitude or two away from the expected cost in the US.
Also, the quote from the Courtney Barnett song about Australian healthcare only applies if you somehow end up in a private emergency department, which is extraordinary unlikely since they're often underprepared for critical emergencies and for non-critical stuff you can ask to be taken to a public hospital in the ambulance. You're likely to get charged a couple of thousand dollars for the ambulance ride (depends on state; in mine, membership of the ambulance org is $53 a year and automatically covers you for any ambulance trip Australia-wide, no denials; others are free), plus a few hundred for the consultation. I believe Medicare will pay for some private care in an emergency department.
She's talking about calling 000 because of an asthma attack but also alludes to a panic attack, which means she's not rationally discussing how much it will cost. It's not a scenario where she will have actual crippling debt like it would be in the US. A non-artistic non-panic-attack analysis of the situation is that she'd pay literally nothing as a public patient in a public hospital, and would pay a few thousand in the unlikely possibility she got admitted to a private hospital. Which, yes, would suck, but her worst case is an order of magnitude or two away from the expected cost in the US.