Bankruptcy from the most expensive helicopter ride ever!

Good deal man...I comment often that there a few of us here in San Antonio but we rarely get together, so perhaps we can get together and enjoy ourselves. AND...since you have peeps down in ATL (my hometown), then you must be an OK dude. :laff:

One other thing, I saw that you frequent a hot dog stand...where is this? The only real HD stand that I knew about was off Marbach/410 and closed a while back.

Oh one LAST thing...I know you have mentioned perhaps selling your house. If you are interested, my wife could hook you up with a CMA and since you're a JC guy, I bet I could convince her to cut you a break on commission too. No pressure of course, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway! :D

I tend to make quick decisions. I already called The Barfield Group and he is going to try to sell my house and/or rent it for enough to have me cover the mortgage (I have a place I can go stay for $300/month which can help!). I was told he helps with historical homes and knows the Tobin Hills area well. He suggested a 'silent' sale since that is how to bring the most cash, but I may need more of a 'quick and reasonable' sale. He did a CMA and home sales there range from $50k to $250k it seems. It's a eclectic area since one house is in amazing condition and the one next door is falling in on itself. Lucky for me, on my street, the top and bottom of the street is real bad homes. But the houses on all sides of me are in really good condition since myself and all the immediate families next to me take pride in our historical bungalows. So the sale is already in the beginning process. I am hopeful to get in the $180's for it since that's my break even point, although I owe much less on it. I guess we'll see what happens.


The Hot Dog Stand is fabulous. It's a couple blocks from my house.
1) Take Route 281 and exit at St Mary's Street.
2) Then go toward downtown, which is South on N. St. Mary's Street (which is away from Brackenridge Park and the Zoo).
3) Go past the YMCA and Grace Coffee House for about 1 block.
4) Then on the RIGHT you will see an old building called Candlelight behind the tree line (so look hard as it's white and has lots of windows). That's another coffee house. On the LEFT you will see a salsa dance club and diagonal you will see Tycoon Flats which is a live music place and restaurant. TURN RIGHT after that Candlelight Coffee house. It's a hard right since a mild right puts you on Woodlawn Ave. You want to be on King's Court.
5) The Hotdog stand is called Frankfurter Express (sometimes us locals just call it kings court since the King of hotdogs works there). You can't miss the place. The whole front fence says hot dogs. Unless of course they painted it again. They change the look often since they keep it fresh, yet historically artistic like most of the neighborhood.

If you plan to go to the hotdog stand, PM me. I will pass along my phone number. I would be glad to meet you there. And the place is BYOB, so bring a six pack for us :beer:

The hot dog stand is one of the few places I can go since the folks there will help me get out of my truck when I pull up. So I can go there anytime. They are open from 11am to 8pm Monday thru Wednesday. And from 11am to 11pm Thursday thru Saturday. Closed on Sunday.

They know me well. My nickname there is "Airforce". I have no idea why, but that's what they call me. Just say I sent you there and you want a good deal on a special dog. Or best yet, invite me along. I will be happy to introduce you to the owner and his son and The King who are all great people!
 
I know this is getting off topic, but the palliative care/getting older debate bothers me. It really bugs me that you can go and have an abortion in 20 minutes without the input of the child, however if you are terminally ill, it IS NOT YOUR choice to die peacefully. I have watched too many family members SUFFER in the last weeks/months because they were not allowed to terminate THEIR OWN LIVES in a peaceful way. I can go find any number of drugs within a couple of hours, but if I wanted to go get me some sodium pentathol, FORGET IT.

I saw a special a couple weeks ago about the lengths people have to go to in order to die with grace. It's ridiculous and sad. As far as I am concerned, if you are of sound mind and you don't want to hang on, then you should be allowed to die peacefully, ON YOUR TERMS. Not what a "palliative care specialist" thinks is the best.

Sorry, rant over.
 
As far as I am concerned, if you are of sound mind and you don't want to hang on, then you should be allowed to die peacefully, ON YOUR TERMS. Not what a "palliative care specialist" thinks is the best.

Sorry, rant over.

:yeahthat:

Now back on topic. Well sort-of.

I looked at your info and noticed your a C-5 FE. I bet I flew at 3,500 feet in many 152s and 172s heading west toward Castorville while you were turning toward final at SKF at 3,000 feet. And I also bet I been called off final just outside the FAF many times because you were coming in behind me since we do low passes daily at SKF. Fun stuff. I love those C-5's.



Okay, now actually for the topic at hand.

Any comments on what would happen if I rented my house and moved to a cheaper apartment. It would only save me about $300 a month to make such a move, and every penny counts right now. My house would be covered by the tenants and my realtor would property manage it to keep my life easy. And we can do this until it sells for close to the asking price. And in this market, that may be a little time since my break even point is at about what the house is currently worth (break even is how much money I have in the house, but my bank loan is much less... I restored the house years ago in my past life and that cost a pretty penny).

Or I could just stay in the house until the house sells. But I bet I lose my roommate if I announce the house is for sale. And then my mortgage payment (rent as I call it) nearly doubles. So that would be very bad.

Or I could just live in my house and continue on as I always have.

So that is 3 distinct options. Opinions on this?

I think selling will help since if I can negotiate the medical bills down to a reasonable level and the house goes at near my asking price, that can take care of half the bills. I hate to sell my house, but I will do it if it helps pay the bills if they become reasonable after negotiating. I can even sell my truck after that if I had too to pay another chunk. I will still be left with a lot of bills I'm sure, but then working extra hours somewhere may take care of them over time.

Maybe it's too early to decide. But I like the idea of being able to restructure myself to a point where I can pay a reasonable amount on the medical bills and go on with life without a BK.

I'll keep people posted on how much these medical bills may negotiate. That may be the key factor at this point. So I will wait a few more weeks or a month even. That way the majority of bills come in since there are some very expensive docs that have yet to bill me. And until I have everything added up with an approximate ending among, I really can not negotiate much. I should know the total soon since my surgeon probably should finish with me in a few weeks. And then once I get his final bill, I should have enough to go on when it comes to negotiating.

Thanks again everyone for helping and listening to my rant...
 
:yeahthat:

Now back on topic. Well sort-of.

I looked at your info and noticed your a C-5 FE. I bet I flew at 3,500 feet in many 152s and 172s heading west toward Castorville while you were turning toward final at SKF at 3,000 feet. And I also bet I been called off final just outside the FAF many times because you were coming in behind me since we do low passes daily at SKF. Fun stuff. I love those C-5's.



Okay, now actually for the topic at hand.

Any comments on what would happen if I rented my house and moved to a cheaper apartment. It would only save me about $300 a month to make such a move, and every penny counts right now. My house would be covered by the tenants and my realtor would property manage it to keep my life easy. And we can do this until it sells for close to the asking price. And in this market, that may be a little time since my break even point is at about what the house is currently worth (break even is how much money I have in the house, but my bank loan is much less... I restored the house years ago in my past life and that cost a pretty penny).

Or I could just stay in the house until the house sells. But I bet I lose my roommate if I announce the house is for sale. And then my mortgage payment (rent as I call it) nearly doubles. So that would be very bad.

Or I could just live in my house and continue on as I always have.

So that is 3 distinct options. Opinions on this?

I think selling will help since if I can negotiate the medical bills down to a reasonable level and the house goes at near my asking price, that can take care of half the bills. I hate to sell my house, but I will do it if it helps pay the bills if they become reasonable after negotiating. I can even sell my truck after that if I had too to pay another chunk. I will still be left with a lot of bills I'm sure, but then working extra hours somewhere may take care of them over time.

Maybe it's too early to decide. But I like the idea of being able to restructure myself to a point where I can pay a reasonable amount on the medical bills and go on with life without a BK.

I'll keep people posted on how much these medical bills may negotiate. That may be the key factor at this point. So I will wait a few more weeks or a month even. That way the majority of bills come in since there are some very expensive docs that have yet to bill me. And until I have everything added up with an approximate ending among, I really can not negotiate much. I should know the total soon since my surgeon probably should finish with me in a few weeks. And then once I get his final bill, I should have enough to go on when it comes to negotiating.

Thanks again everyone for helping and listening to my rant...

Yep...we do like to keep the locals annoyed as we cruise around mucking up everyone's patterns. Of course, we dislike the F-16 guys and the T-1's out of Randolph, cause they mess it up for us! Don't worry though, I have been out putting around Medina Lake in my Cherokee and had a C-5 "come out of nowhere"...especially since we rarely fly that far west.

As you know, the market here in SA is a *little* different than the rest of the US in that we haven't been hurt nearly as bad as some markets. With that being said, the market here isn't great either and values HAVE taken a hit. We are in a similar position. We have been in the house for about 4 years and put about 30% down. If we were to sell it, we would take about a 20K right now, which hurts. Granted, if push comes to shove, we wouldn't have to bring anything to the table, so we are better off than 80% of people here. Honestly, if you are able to manage the payments, I would stay there with your room mate. There are SO MANY short sells and foreclosures, the banks are very willing to adjust things to try and keep you in the home. I would also think that given your situation, you will be able to negotiate a lot of your medical bills, or at least keep the foreclosure docs from being filed for a while.

A big problem you can have if you keep it, rent it out, and move into an apartment is the showings when you put it on the market. My wife dislikes taking listings with tenants, because they will deny showings, not keep the place clean, etc. etc. etc. It can really be a pain. Then...if you lose the tenant, now you get to cover rent AND a mortgage.

I know you have a lot on your plate/mind so these are just a couple of things that popped into my head!

Oh...one last thing...if you do rent it...DO NOT use D'Ann Harper for the rental management. They are GREAT for selling/buying, but the rental management department is HORRIBLE! My wife is an agent with D'Ann and she REFUSES to use the rental department because they suck so bad...and that is just sad!
 
Hope most employers think along your lines when it comes to hiring. I had Aetna up until about a year ago.

Unfortunate with my CFI pay averaging around $2000 a month take home for 80 to 120 hours a month of flight and ground paid time. Hours varied so much pending weather and student load. This year being a bit less on pay and hours due to a lower student load at the school.

So once I pay my $800 mortgage and my $300 a month student loan and the $20 internet, $50 electric/ gas, $20 water/trash, $60 car insurance, and $60cell phone I barely had enough left over to eat and put gas in my truck. And those bills were half the actual cost on the house items since I rent out the spare room in my house to keep everything as cheap as possible. And hence why I enjoyed the 40mpg my bike would get.

With things so tight in my budget, it is also why I had to cancel my insurance and cancel my cable tv along with some other lifestyle cut backs since I never wanted to miss a bill. And having only $600 to spend on food and fuel and personal bath items and such was tough to do, but I managed to squeak by and always have a few bucks left at the end of the month. But not enough for the insurance since Aetna was the cheapest I could find in Texas for a major medical plan for me at 37 years of age and a cost of about $130 a month.

Let me get this straight... you had a car and a motorcycle but you could not afford health insurance? You should have sold the motorcycle or never purchased it. How much did the motorcycle set you back?? Even if someone gave it to you, you could have sold it and used the proceeds to pay for health insurance. You made a personal choice and now you want others to pick up the mess you made.
 
Oh...one last thing...if you do rent it...DO NOT use D'Ann Harper for the rental management. They are GREAT for selling/buying, but the rental management department is HORRIBLE! My wife is an agent with D'Ann and she REFUSES to use the rental department because they suck so bad...and that is just sad!

Barfield Group is affiliated with Keller Williams. I don't know much of how the industry works, but I think he is affiliated with them but he is also his own agent/ broker. Maybe that makes sense. Or maybe not. Either way, they seem to know a lot of people with great interest in historical homes near downtown.
 
Let me get this straight... you had a car and a motorcycle but you could not afford health insurance? You should have sold the motorcycle or never purchased it. How much did the motorcycle set you back?? Even if someone gave it to you, you could have sold it and used the proceeds to pay for health insurance. You made a personal choice and now you want others to pick up the mess you made.

Keep on reading through the thread above and you'll get your answer. But you may not like it. It may even shock you. And that is okay. I hear your point on where you come from. And if you read through it all, you'll see mine.
 
But in the future (way distant future), when I do get back on a bike, there will be no helmet in the state of Texas unless the law changes.

I can say this though. There will be insurance. Even if I have to beg, borrow, and steal for it. Okay, not steal for it. But I will beg and borrow for it!

so you roll the dice without the helmet and win, so in the future, no helmet. roll the dice on insurance and lose, so in the future, insurance.

bankruptcy probably won't keep you from getting hired, but i wouldn't mention your views on basic safety.
 
If I can get the $300k to $500k of bills down to reasonable (from what I see I think it will be closer to the top end of that estimate since they keep on coming and every one seems to be larger than the previous one!). I am thinking reasonable is $30k to $50k total bills based on what my income is and will be for the long term.
Keep in mind that what they've billed you is nothing more than a starting point for negotiation. Think of it as the sticker price on a new car. The girls at the Bunny Ranch will ask for thousands but will settle for a few hundred, doctors and hospitals are no different. :D

As Iain said, start with the Medicaid reimbursement rates and go from there.

And for Chrissake, start wearing a helmet when you ride, bonehead.
 
Keep in mind that what they've billed you is nothing more than a starting point for negotiation. Think of it as the sticker price on a new car. The girls at the Bunny Ranch will ask for thousands but will settle for a few hundred, doctors and hospitals are no different. :D

As Iain said, start with the Medicaid reimbursement rates and go from there.

And for Chrissake, start wearing a helmet when you ride, bonehead.

+500 on helmet/gear - the thing I'd be worried about in a job interview would be someone questioning your judgement and risk managment/mitigation skillz for going without helmet/gear on a 40k bike with no insurance.

I vaguely recall, probably incorrectly, that the hospital will work with you if you show a good faith effort to make payments. If you get pushed into BK, they get nothing, just like with all the other charity cases.
Have you talked to a financial counselor at the hospital yet?
As Aloft also alluded to, if you are self-pay, you initially get billed the full, undiscounted amount. Insurance companies and medicaid/medicare will get billed lower amounts based on contracts with the hospital system and God knows what else. Point is you should have plenty of negotiating room.
 
I spent my years as a CFI sans health insurance because I couldn't afford it.

My parents helped pay for my automobile and I lived on a couch at a relative's house. I dodged a bullet when I totaled my car one morning on the drive to work.

Economically, that's what our society demands. If the CFI hourly rate was enough to cover health insurance, the rate would be so high that people wouldn't want to take flight instruction, and that sucks.

Kind of related to how we all want cheap tickets from JFK to LAX on the forum, but we also want compensation requisite with our skillset.

Me as well.

Although I think it was a lack of priorities. Being 20, 21, 22 years old I didn't think I needed health insurance. Of course I also drove a Volvo station wagon, not a motorcycle, so the chances of getting hurt in a car accident were pretty low.

I'm not sure about health insurance off the shelf but I did fly with a guy who carried his own catastrophic health plan. I believe it was BC/BS, around $60/month, and had a yearly deductible of $10,000. He also said that once on it, as long as he paid his monthly premium, they could not cancel it no matter what.

In America we buy our $60 cell phone but forgo the catastrophic insurance. It's all about priorities. Maybe there really is something to Obama's "everyone pays" health insurance. People won't do it otherwise, and it prevent just this sort of thing.
 
Me as well.

Although I think it was a lack of priorities. Being 20, 21, 22 years old I didn't think I needed health insurance. Of course I also drove a Volvo station wagon, not a motorcycle, so the chances of getting hurt in a car accident were pretty low.

I'm not sure about health insurance off the shelf but I did fly with a guy who carried his own catastrophic health plan. I believe it was BC/BS, around $60/month, and had a yearly deductible of $10,000. He also said that once on it, as long as he paid his monthly premium, they could not cancel it no matter what.

In America we buy our $60 cell phone but forgo the catastrophic insurance. It's all about priorities. Maybe there really is something to Obama's "everyone pays" health insurance. People won't do it otherwise, and it prevent just this sort of thing.

I had BC BS catastrophic and it was 30 a month. Even if you have to throw that much on a credit card and carry the balance it's worth it. Post college my parents wouldn't give me any financial support, I was able to talk them into paying for that insurance though. Not just for me, but for them in case I had some sort of catastrophic accident. I can't imagine anyone's parents would be unwilling to help them out with this sort of insurance if they could possibly afford to help you with 10, 20, 30 dollars a month.
 
Socialize Healthcare.

That would probably just transfer wealth from the tax payers to those in the medical field.

Right now, private companies have an incentive to keep a lid on costs because it makes their premiums lower, giving them an advantage in getting more customers.

Socializing it takes away that incentive. Kinda like how deregulation expanded airline service and lowered prices - it was great for the consumers, and safety has gone down many times over since then. Airlines were forced to get more efficient.
 
That would probably just transfer wealth from the tax payers to those in the medical field.

Right now, private companies have an incentive to keep a lid on costs because it makes their premiums lower, giving them an advantage in getting more customers.

Right, but the medical companies and insurance companies raise their rates, because people who aren't insured get a bill for a half a million dollars, that they know won't get paid. They take that loss, write it off, and pass it on to the insurance companies and consumers, who ultimately pay more in the long run.
 
That would probably just transfer wealth from the tax payers to those in the medical field.

Right now, private companies have an incentive to keep a lid on costs because it makes their premiums lower, giving them an advantage in getting more customers.

Socializing it takes away that incentive. Kinda like how deregulation expanded airline service and lowered prices - it was great for the consumers, and safety has gone down many times over since then. Airlines were forced to get more efficient.
With socialization would also come increased regulation.
 
Just a heads up. I called a couple of the bills to negotiate something I can afford in the long term and here is how that went.

The helicopter folks are very nice. The patient accounts person is referring me to a private pay division. I was told they have many different options to help me come to reasonable terms. I will get a call from them in about 2-3 weeks to discuss the options. I was told not to worry. Somehow she made me feel comfortable about the situation and how they will try to work with me.

So I am very happy with the AirLife Team and how they are handling this. I have good faith that we can work something out between us now and in the long term.

The Radiology folks were nice like the helicopter folks. Their bills were around $3,000 and they will help. It went to their review department and I can follow up with them if I do not hear back in a few weeks.

Okay. One theme I noticed. Nothing here moves fast, which is also good.

Now the big one. I called the hospital on thier "in-patient" $56k bill and the more than $100k in doctor bills that also come through the same billing phone number on the majority of them. After getting transferred around from one place to another for over an hour, no one could help. They said that is the bill and it is due now. They were quite rude.

So with that I told them forget about it. They can talk to Legal Aid once I go there in a few weeks for an appointment I will make with a legal consultant since I may need to file for BK if they do not work with me now and in the future to make this more reasonable since I have intentions to pay if we get this to a reasonable amount that I can handle based on the future income I will have once back to work.

That made the hospital a little nicer and with another transfer they referred me to a program called Care Link who can set up a payment program and help. I was told they may not reduce the bills but they will set up a payment plan based on my income.

Since my income is zero dollars, I have under $200 in the bank after paying all July bills for the whole month, and I can not get back to work for a couple more months at least, not sure how much they expect me to pay now. But I can assure them something in the future so hope they take that into consideration.

So I have an appointment for July 19th and told me to bring all my bills I have collected so far. I also have to bring my last year tax return and my year to date income and a list of any property and vehicles I own. I also need a letter saying I am an unemployed contractor with no benefits (lets see, flight instructor with no working foot... lets not state the obvious :)).

They did ask a couple questions and once again the house seems to be an issue. I don't get it. In San Antonio Texas, you can purchase a house and end up paying the same exact payment as rent. It's just the nature of our market since there are many nice homes in the less than $150k range. So with good credit and not much more than the amount a security deposit would cost you at an apartment you end up with a nice 1,200 square foot home. Anyway, that is besides the point here. It's just clear the house is an issue all around and I will take that as a fact that won't change in regard to the medical bill issues.

So while not quite as hopeful about this Care Link and the hospital bill, I can only assume once push comes to shove and they realize they can take a reasonable amount or get nothing at all, they will negotiate with me like the other nice folks in radiology and AirLife.

So that's the update for today. I really won't make any more negotiation calls until my Care Link appointment a few weeks from now since I will see what they can do. The result of that determines my next steps. It's clear, this will be a long process.

Thanks for your help, opinions, and comments so far.
 

I can't watch the videos because apparently I don't have the right version of Flash, but I guess it was about Sweden?

I'm not an expert on Sweden's economy but I do know that their car industry is in shambles. Saab was saved at the last minute by some odd-ball custom car maker for peanuts on the dollar and Volvo was sold to the Chinese at a huge loss to Ford. Sounds a lot like America to me...and certainly not the greatest of indicators.
 
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