In the US, what happens if you sustain a life threatening injury and you don't have insurance?

Jordos@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 232 points –

Assuming nobody else is at fault

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You tell the hospital to pound sand when they send a five or six figure bill. Very few in the US have $20,000 or so just lying around. The hospital knows that, the court knows that, even the latest version of FICO knows that.

You can ask for an itemized bill, amd usually a bunch of stupid charges go away. You can try and arrange a payment plan.

But really, after a certain point, it doesn't matter if the bill is $10,000 or $1,000,000, there's just no money, and there will not ever be that money, and they can cry wage garnishment until their ears bleed but it almost never happens - because there's no money.

But what happens if someone has a savings and happens to have say $50k in there and then they're hit with a health issue that incurs a $25k hospital bill? Can they then come after you for payment if you have the money in savings?

In that case, yes they could. But things are different for a person who has 50k in savings, I wasn't talking about them.

Yes, you're punished for saving while those spend all they earned are rewarded. It's a messed up system.