alt Hacker NewsHospital bills feels like a pretty ordinary compound to me - not like "good morning" or "ginger ale" where you can't just use what you know about the two words to figure out what the compound must mean.
Some cases are basically impossible "Crash blossoms" you don't stand any chance without knowing why we call them that
Some are middling difficult, "Home Secretary" requires that you know every meaning for the two words and then you happen to pick the correct obscure meaning, a "Secretary" could be in charge, and "Home" could mean the entire country as distinct from everywhere else.
But "Hospital bills" doesn't seem even marginally difficult
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below43 • last Monday at 7:08 PM
In most English speaking countries it's a far from common phrase (ie. it's very USA-centric).
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I had to look up "crash blossoms"! But that's just an idiom, which is always tricky in translation. It might also be slang. Idioms and slang are borderline dictionary material, different editors make different choices, and they change over time.
But "ginger ale" seems straightforward to me. It's an ale, flavored with ginger. Not even idiomatic, just descriptive. Root beer. Grape soda. Orange chicken.