This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 28th, 2019.

I'm Kila Brown.

When Eric Ferguson was bitten by a venomous snake and was rushed to the hospital for treatment.

He later received a surprise bill for more than $80,000 for anti-venom that costs $750 online.

His story is featured in the new Cato book,

Overcharged, why Americans pay too much for health care.

I spoke with Mr. Ferguson last week.

The beginning is kind of comical. I was taking the trash out at midnight one night and it was dark.

It was in August and stepped on what I thought might have been a wasp nest but and I felt a sharp pain and

Dropped what I was doing and went back in my home and my wife looked at me and she said you get

stung I said no bees don't have fangs so we call the hospital and told them I'd just been bit by a copperhead and the first thing I was asked was how do you know it was a copperhead?

I said, well, we only have one venomous snake and they have fangs in our area.

So escalated to the hospital, they brought me in there, checked my vitals and immediately

admitted me and started the treatment of which it began a 19-hour stay in the hospital.

Okay, so what was the treatment?

They triaged me and ran me straight into a room because they were very concerned about the swelling.

It had escalated up my leg almost to my knee and they were worried about the leg,

muscles, tissues, and whatnot bursting open because of the

swelling, so they were taking measurements consistently.

They were also concerned about this infection from the venom spreading past the knee and possibly throwing a blood clot clot which would have probably been detrimental to my health

needless to say so they brought a specialist in who was I was explained that is specially trained to administer

anti-venom and so you know at this point they had given me things for the pain

...