Healthcare question – premature birth

My friend and his wife live in Barcelona. They’re both Americans. They recently had their first child, but it was a pretty traumatic experience. At 24 weeks, my friend’s wife developed an infection in the amniotic sac, which was a signal the pregnancy was failing. They went to their local hospital and were immediately checked into the intensive care unit.

The doctors began to work. They gave her steroids while the baby was still inside the womb to help with growing the lungs. They gave medications for the infection and to stop any contractions that her body might start since it was receiving signals the pregnancy was failing. She was on bed rest for another month and the baby was born at 30 or 31 weeks.

The baby spent months in the nicu and has multiple surgeries during that time. As of today, because of these medical miracles, my friends have a healthy, beautiful baby boy.

This was all free, with no out-of-pocket charge.

In our system, or a largely free market system, how is a result like this achieved without completely bankrupting a middle—to lower-middle-class person?

I understand the underlying taxation part of this story. I’ve been wrestling with this for several weeks now.