You're right in that the American medical system is a special kind of [Poor language removed], both in the pricing and the motives, but a couple of things:
1. If the lad has to come here to get the treatment, it's likely very new and borderline experimental. Which almost always means expensive
2. Were the same plight ever to, god forbid, strike an American child, their insurance company and/or the Medicaid system would pick up almost all of the tab, and have the clout to negotiate the price down with the hospital. This family is unfortunately paying the full bill, which basically nobody does here.
We actually have similar problems if we ever need serious medical treatment traveling abroad. The bill tends to be an order of magnitude smaller and it's possible to get international "gap" coverage, but it happens. Friend of mine once broke a bone in Germany and had to pay a few thousand dollars for treatment.
I'm not defending the system at all, just trying to provide an explanation. I was a big proponent of the public option (which, translation, would be an end result pretty similar to Ireland, Netherlands, or Germany) when it was on the table. ObamaCare made it harder for insurance companies to screw people, but it did little to address the insane costs.
