You wouldn't have paid anything like $68k. As mentioned in the article, those prices are inflated for charging the insurance company, who in turn negotiates a much better actual price. Similarly, the hospital would have likely worked out a better deal with you. Or, if you qualified (and it sounds like you would have), then Medicaid would have initially picked up the tab and they would have negotiated a better deal for themselves.

In none of these scenarios does anybody actually pay the made-up $68k number.