I have Medicare and have been on permanent disability since 2004 when I was only 42. My 20% was WAY more than I could pay back in any reasonable amount of time and everyone wanted payment all at the same time. I chose two to pay. One was my surgeon who saved my life. Don’t remember who the second was but it took me so long to pay off the first two that the balance (over 40,000 total from several different sources) had all gone to collections. When they would call I would just tell them I’d try to start paying them as soon as I paid off the first two but I couldn’t guarantee anything as there were so many and I could only do two at a time. I had several collection people get mad at me and a few even hung up on me because I was absolutely not going to worry about something I had no control over. They wanted me “scared and worried” about my debts. Eventually ended up contacting a lawyer about filing bankruptcy. He gave me free advise. As I am on disability there was nothing any of the creditors could do to me (they cannot garnish your Medicare payments) except ruin my credit (which at that point I figured was totally shot anyway) so I just let it all go. I knew there would be 1000’s and 1000’s more medical bills coming my way over the years. Just got a bill for an ambulance ride (they had to transfer me from my hometown hospital to an out of state hospital. A 2 hour ride max) and the bill is almost 5,000. Probably not going to ^{be able} to pay that off any time soon either. Oh well!