[ceejayoz]

> No hospital will leave you (because of decency and federal law) to die if you can't pay.

Yes, they will. The legal requirement (under EMTALA) is to provide emergency screening and care until stabilized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Nataline_Sarkisyan

"UCLA declined two livers while waiting for insurance approval from Cigna. Sarkisyan's family was also informed that they could proceed with the transplant if they could make a down-payment of $75,000."

[ericmay]

Stabilization and emergency care are exactly not leaving you to die.

[ceejayoz]

They won't give you months worth of chemo, or a liver transplant. You will die without them, but the hospital has no legal obligation to prevent that in these cases. You can keep coming back to the ER, getting progressively sicker and sicker, and they'll give you fluids, pain meds, treat acute symptoms, and then refer you to an oncologist or surgeon, who won't treat you further without knowing it's gonna be paid for.

I've provided a very concrete example of how this plays out.

[ericmay]

Yes but the concrete example of how this plays out doesn't contradict what I said. If you wanted to contradict what I said you would find an example where someone showed up to the ER and the hospital said sorry we're not treating you because you can't pay, and then they died outside of the hospital or in the waiting room. And even then you'd have to find a number of examples to establish a pattern.

Also once you reach the point that you are describing that is typically when state resources kick in. If you become sick enough (for example with cancer) you go on Medicaid and disability. I recently went through this exact process with my mom. It wasn't fun and boy do the spam and scam calls really add to the experience. Why we tolerate this crap in America is absolutely bewildering.