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It's a struggle with medical stuff as anyone else without health insurance knows, every procedure is very expensive and if you miss a couple of payments like I did, the fucking hospital sends your debt to a collection agency who harasses you at work, even. I am still trying to figure out a way to get rid of these debts without selling the thing. I'm sure it will go up in value somewhat, but I can't imagine that much more than it's currently worth.
Collection agency are blood suckers who generally buy the debt at pennies on the dollar from hospitals. Medical debt usually goes for really cheap, because very few people actually pay it. I wouldn't pay more than $0.50 on the dollar. My mother-in-law has been paying the medical bills for her uncle recently and she learned a few tricks:
1) The hospital has several different rates for procedures. The book rate for insurance and rates for everyone else. She has been very successful in having bills lowered to the insurance rates by just asking.
2) Ask the hospital if they will forgive the bill. Many hospitals have funds set aside for people without insurance. My mother-in-law has also had success in getting $1000s of bills waived.
3) Suggest payment plans to the hospital that really favor you- like $50 a month or some other low ball amount. Many times they will accept this just to avoid the collection agencies.
4) If you have the cash offer really low pay-off amounts to the collection agencies. Almost anything you pay them is going to get them a return, so the quicker they have you money and can close the file the better it is for them.
Now, if you think that the era of ridiculous guitar value increases are over than sell the guitar. Lets say the guitar appreciates at an average of 5% a year and it's worth $15,000 to VG. In 12 years it would be worth $30,000 and in 24 years it would be worth $60,000. 5% is only a couple of points over historic inflation numbers. You're better off taking what's left of the money, after paying off bills, and sticking it in a mutual fund (or some other similar vehicle) and hopefully get a better return.
if you think the guitar is still going to have massive value increases- say 10-20% a year- than hang on to it if you can. Obviously, no one knows for sure. Good luck and I hope this works out for you.