If you have the money and refuse to pay, you can be jailed for contempt of court. They can garnish your wages, seize your financial and non-financial assets. Better to just file bankruptcy than to openly defy the court. Of course, if you have no assets, they can't take them.
I disagree with what traveler said. I have been to court, and have seen many times, that it doesnt work that way. That would be a long story, though. The bottom line here is: they wont take you to court, for medical claims. This happened in my case. The courts know that medical cost are ridicously high, pretty much like stealing. Not only do the courts know this, so do the collection agencies, the doctors, the hospital, the insurance companies, etc..... and this is why they didnt take me to court. Also, I do have assets. But a court will not normally side with a medical claim, and try to take your assets. If this were true, they would have did it to me.
==================== And most people dont think politically like NYT, WashPost, LA TImes. So dont think most American support Gov health care or tax increase,you ever heard of Walter Reed mess; sure you have, rats, mold, gov mess- gov health care. So it would be more accurate to say big media supports big gov whenever they can ; & they sure dont speak for USA or me Of course not all big media supports big gov/Hillary-health care; investors,com Investors Business Daily does support NEITHER
Have you ever had to pay a hospital bill out of pocket? Do you even realize how absurd the pricing for medical care is nowdays, especially trauma treatment? The service is pure sh*t, the pricing is absurd. The doctors will make up excuses to give uncessary testing & procedures just to squeeze more money out of insurance or your pocket. They will push unnecessary pills en masse. Your well being is not a concern, their pocket is. Yes there is a serious lack of personal accountability for the McDonalds fat asses, but there are also plenty of people that think they are eating healthy, when in fact they are consuming factory produced, GMO modified, chemical sprayed and injected crap. There is capitalism at its best, because Monsanto, General Mills, Dean foods & Archer Daniels need to improve profits and quality food requres quality care. Why is it that free healthcare works in Canada & Europe. Why is it that the standard of living is higher there and people are in general happier. Why is it that when Europeans come to USA, they all say that the food here tastes artificial. Yeah, socialistic aspects are sooo bad. Screw the little farmers, Monsanto has analyst projections to meet, so lets drive them out of business with mass produced cheap crap. By the way, has it ever crossed your mind just how similiar today's mass farming operations are to those of Soviet collectivist farms? The fact is that USA's medical industry is capitalist driven entity, where profit rules all. You are taking something noble and turning it into a business. Kids are becoming doctors to get rich, not to help people. Big pharma pushes their drugs through these kids, corrupting even the good ones. Medical bills are bankrupting people, just how absurd is that in a 1st world country. There are certain things that should not be done for profit alone. Medicine is one of them. There is little profit in a healthy population, after all. You make a great point about the plan failing. It does not look at the real root of the problem.
Funny thing is the American Public felt the same way in the 90's when Clinton took a shot at UHC. Even the republicans were on board and it looked doable until Bill Krystol ,quail's campaign manager, told the republicans that if Clinton pulled it off ,then it would be the end of the republican party. I remember Glaxo went to 14 maybe lower from the mid -30s. I think the market felt it was gonna happen. Health care stocks got crushed.
Why is it that free healthcare works in Canada & Europe. Why is it that the standard of living is higher there and people are in general happier. Why is it that when Europeans come to USA, CRAP. Why? Because Europeans take advantage of medical vacations as much as Americans. Europeans are happier than Americans?? Again CRAP. Average wait for specialist in Canada-4.5 months.(Canadian source) Standard of living higher in Europe? CRAP I am not saying it's not screwed up in the U.S. but to think that just nationalizing will solve the problem is naive stupidity.
I think most Europeans are very happy. I'm very happy every time I go to Europe; it's beautiful. It has that old world charm, warm people, great scenery, and a whole lot more.
Anyone who believes the standard of living in Europe is higher than the USA hasnt done their homework, plain and simple. There are easy to find studies proving this is not the case. Go google. Just because socialized healthcare may work somewhere else doesnt mean it will work here. (Canada's sucks by the way, if you think thats a working system, good luck with that). There are way too many differences between the US and europe to simply assume what works there will work here. Want to know how it will work here? We already have it, its called medicare and its a complete failure. Now some people want to expand that complete failure to everyone. Yipee!!!!!
I am very happy with my public healthcare system here in Canada. Don't talk about what you don't know. American has by far the most violence and violent gun deaths in the WORLD. Sadly and ironcially there is no base of health care to cover this. Is this a concidence - that unhappy, stressed people shoot each other? Europe has little gun crime. Must just be a big concidence..