Christ, what an asshole!
Worse, the the punch wasn’t free either.
As they say, TANSTAAFH.
As a Canadian, this is the scariest part of the story… is she going to get a hospital bill now? What is that going to be like?
Maybe it was free as in speech?
Thank you Sir, may I have another. Maybe not…
Welcome to NYC
Young lady is accosted and then gets a bill for her medical expenses. Pretty much got the full treatment.
If I had to guess, I’d say the bill will be between US$1000-2000. Plus another $800 or so if she took an ambulance to get there.
Seriously? Ambulances are $45 here… and there’s talk that even that shouldn’t be out of pocket.
I hope she had travel insurance!
American Exceptionalism! Freedom Hugs!
Hugs is a wrongly imprisoned street performer. This guy is just trying to bring attention to his plight and is accepting donations for the Free Hugs legal defense.
Or after all that, I hope that someone at least offered her a hug.
Wasn’t Times Sq better when it was seedy strip clubs, XXX movies, and live sex shows?
Our system is the best though! (somehow - still trying to figure out how).
Does this mean she can sue for false advertising?
#america
My fellow Canadians, always, always, always buy traveler’s insurance before taking a trip to the States. You don’t know what medical bankruptcy is, and you don’t want to find out.
I have travel insurance through my union, so I’m covered, and I grew up with snowbird grandparents, I learned as a child all about $50 a piece kleenex and $100,000 hospital stays. (We knew a man who snuck his wife out of the hospital to drive her home from Florida with a broken hip!)
I’m pretty sure ambulances are in the $800-1200 ballpark here. I’ve only ever seen one ambulance bill, though, and it was a few years ago.
I just checked my last NYC ER bill from when we took a kid in with a bad fever, and my $1-2k estimate may have been low. The retail rate on that last bill was $3500 just for the visit, plus another $2700 in services. Our insurance’s negotiated rate was roughly half of retail, however, and since I already met my annual deductible, I only got stuck with a ~$300 out-of-pocket bill. A bargain, right? America!
