| This person is actually going to pay less than many people who are insured precisely because they’re uninsured. Someone who is insured in the US is not allowed to negotiate. This person can call the billing department and say “I can’t pay” and watch that bill plummet. The 50% or so of Americans who get their healthcare from solid employers will exhaust their deductible but otherwise be generally fine. Then there’s another chunk of people on Medicaid and Medicare (government healthcare for elderly or poor) who would be fine in this situation. The group of people in the United States who are screwed fall into a few categories: hourly workers who aren’t offered insurance or who are offered bad insurance from their employers, or business owners that have to self insure. The ACA (Obamacare) attempted to help this situation by making health insurance mandatory and essentially going the route of Germany, but the mandate has been handicapped by numerous compromises in the bill itself, court rulings, and political turmoil. Also the high unregulated cost of drugs doesn’t help. It was not able to defeat the for-profit health insurance industry. It’s wild to me that these political parties that claim to be pro-business don’t support separating healthcare coverage from employment. This is probably because of status-quo lobbying and a desire to keep people wage enslaved until retirement age. |
I don't think it works this way that often. It might just get sent to a debt collector. They might give you a lower fee, but it won't be by that much.