To whomever wrote the paragraph the OP quotes:
1 - Notice the part that says "This is not a bill". If you have insurance, you will pay (or your parents will pay) their out of pocket maximum, which will be a tiny fraction of the total charges. Technically they will pay their deductible and then 20% of the remaining charges until they reach their OOP (usually between $6k-15k), but whatever..
2 - If you do not have insurance, first make sure she isn't eligible for Medicaid/Medicare. If she is not most hospitals still have some kind of major financial assistant programs. Obviously nobody can be realistically expected to pay that much.. or even 5% of those charges. Hospitals would rather have what little you can afford than nothing at all... and hospitals will almost NEVER go to collections over bad debt, especially in this situation.
Basically this will be resolved in one of three scenarios:
Worst-case scenario: You don't have insurance and the hospital is run by Satan himself and they are unwilling to forgive any portion of the charges. In this case you simply don't pay them. Period. They won't go to collections and after a year or so they will just write off the charges a bad debt and forget about it.
Most likely scenario: You either have insurance and pay your OOP or you don't have insurance and the hospital will forgive most of the debt and ask for an amount similar to an OOP, or whatever you can honestly afford. Again, hospitals would rather accept whatever little portion you are realistically able to afford rather than the alternative. You'll still probably end up paying several thousand dollars, but they will definitely set up a long-term payment plan and I can't imagine them asking for more than 20 or 30k over a 5 year period or something.. I bet it will be a lot less than that though.
Best scenario: Your mom qualifies for Medicaid or Medicare (could she now be considered disabled?) and you pay little to nothing. I don't know about Medicare but I know Medicaid covers bills retroactively up to 90 days (in my state).
As for the size of the charges... for most of those things remember that it doesn't actually cost $1000 to do a CT and the sterile supplies aren't really worth $27K as it indicates. Rather, those are the prices that the hospital must charge in order to keep its doors open and all of its facilities functional. Healthcare has ENORMOUS overhead.. open 24/7, always staffed with trained professionals, have to make up for the financial black holes that they lose money on (ER, Medicare, people who don't pay their bills, etc. etc.)
You'll be just fine. Nobody needs parents with money to attend and succeed in college anymore.. its not the 1930s. There is free grant money if you're in need and scholarship money galore if you get good grades.. not to mention part-time jobs. In fact you should consider applying to medical school because this whole ordeal will you give you something legit to write about on your "Obstacle I've overcome" essays.
I'm really sorry about your mom and not trying to sound callous, but your reaction is pretty melodramatic.. things are not as bad as you make them out to be (financially).
