Ok, mine is way less than her, but at one of the ER in Wisconsin, they sent me a bill of $400 for literally telling me that I have no disease and sending me back. Out of that, the insurance paid $300, and I paid 100 out of my pocket.
I had gone to ER only because it was at an odd time and no other hospital was open.
Lay people don't have the training to determine if an ailment is life-threatening or not; that's why they pay for insurance, so they can see a medical professional who is qualified to say if you could die or not.
You mean one should wait until the signs show with certainty that they're about to die before going to the ER? That'd a bit of a stretch :). Of course, I went because I thought it was an emergency (though I can see your definition of 'emergency' is quite different from mine). It's not like I went because I had cold.
I had gone to ER only because it was at an odd time and no other hospital was open.