No Stupid Questions

They'll fix everyone at the ER.

But you get a ridiculous bill, then likely "settle" for a much lower amount of if you're truly pennyless, you just never pay it and eventually the hospital gives up and uses it as a tax write off.

It's a shit system

ER patches you up, you get a large bill, you declare bankruptcy, life goes on.

The question you should ask is, what happens if you have no insurance and you develop a serious chronic illness.

Emergenty rooms in hospitals are legaly required to help all patieints, so you would recieve care. Usually until you are able to leave the hospital. You would not receive followup care without going to the emergecy room, or paying cash. You would be billed for all services, usually at a higher rate than insured patients

Holy shit what the actual fuck is your health care system America. This thread is nightmare fuel.

If someone calls an ambulance and you’re unconscious they will take you the hospital for treatment. You will be responsible for the bill. Including the thousands of dollars for the ambulance ride.

And no, even though you were unconscious and not able to consent to treatment willingly you will still be responsible for the bill. There are ways of dealing with it, but one accident is all it takes for a ruined credit score for some people. It is as fucked up as it sounds.

There are ways of waiving bills, getting financial assistance etc but it’s a total nightmare dealing with hospital billing departments

Something nobody else has mentioned her eis that even if a hostpital is required to provide care regardless of your insurance, in practice you're not unlikely to get a lower standard of care if you have no insurance or even if you have insurance that's seen as "inferior" like Medicaid.

Folks without insurance or with "lesser" insurance tende to be poorer. More likely to be seeking pain meds to use recreationally. More likely to be disabled, overweight, etc. More likely to be racially discriminated against or, if white, seen as "white trash". So, having no insurance or inferior insurance itself may get you written off as "probably lying" or otherwise somehow undeserving of the same level of care.

And if that's an issue for life-threatening injuries, it's... probably much more so an issue for more routine kinds of medical care. It's literally not even an option to self pay in some cases. And I don't just mean because it's so expensive. Even if you did say "I don't have insurance, but my bank account has $100 million in it and I can use my debit card," you may be told you're not allowed to self pay.

Poor people without insurance are often sent to alternative care facilities specifically for poor people without insurance. And as you might expect, those places are often very understaffed. So you can expect longer wait times and more rushed care.

Poor people without insurance also often don't get treated early when a problem isn't a huge deal for fear of accruing medical debt. So they're also more likely to end up unexpectedly needing a trip to the ER because that minor infection that, had they gotten it treated a week ago, would have been taken care of with a round of antibiotics has now spread to some much more vital organ.

When I was younger and made next to nothing, I ended up in the emergency room with a bill I couldn't possibly afford to pay. I called up the billing dept and told them about my financial situation and they told me to contact Health Quest so I qualify for a discount. It was relatively easy and not only did it erase my previous debt but it gave me a 0% liability for any hospital fees for the next 6mos. The funny thing was that the hospital ended up selling my my debt to collections by that point so every time they called id fax them a copy of a letter and id never hear from them again and after a few times of them selling this debt to other collectors it just got dropped. This was in upstate NY in like 2010 so YMMV.

In short? Medical debt. Emergency rooms will treat you, and in some cases might offer discounted rates for patients without insurance, but at the end of the day you are still responsible for the bill, however large it may be.

Go into enough debt that you wish you just died

You go to the hospital and get a bill that puts you into debt for the rest of your life. Maybe you do a crowdfunding campaign to cover part of it

You get care, and then bills and then bankrupt.

Don't forget the possibility of refusing to identify yourself. Without an identity there is no way to bill you. So you just leave and the hospital has no way to contact you. This is the path taken by many, especially the poor.

The hospital will keep sending you bills. Every month, and if you don’t pay that or set up a payment plan with them… they absolutely send it to a collection agency. That law agency will hound you all day every day, phone calls… text messages… Mailing threats and lawyer fees on top of the OG bill.

Eventually, I know from personal experience… they will take you to debtor’s court. Where you sit in a room full of strangers till your name is called. Then you have to prove how poor you are and they can pause the collection efforts for a period of time… or if the judge believes you can afford something… then your court ordered to pay… or else.

What happens if I'm a foreigner? Let's say I travel there as a tourist, break an arm hiking, they put me in plaster. Let's assume I'm careless and made no travel insurance. Are they going to stop me on the border?

Emergency rooms are legally required to provide treatment, and will do so even for non-life-threatening conditions.

If you don't have insurance coverage but can pay, you will get a bill. If you can't pay, in most cases the hospital will write off the debt.