Not intentionally but this happened to me. I have bad adult asthma and spent 6hr in an my in network ER (on the advice of my pcp) a couple of years ago. Got some meds a chest X-ray (turns out I had pneumonia!) and got sent home stablized. my bill for the 6h (with BCBS insurance) was ~$3k. Last year I was in Japan for 2 weeks and again got sick. After avoiding it for a few days I again went to the ER and got the same treatments/test (this time it was only the flu). Bill (no insurance at all) $200. Round trip direct flight to Japan from my house is $1300 and takes less then a day. Makes me think what I might want to do next time...