Originally Posted by SirFlysALot
You are kidding right? If you have no health insurance even if you truly can pay for an emergency room visit, you get the bum's rush out. The ER will not bother to find out if you can really pay and will treat you as if you are indigent. Medicaid does little for the working poor or middle class at least in my state. If you are working 40 hours a week it is just too bad. And those pools are not cheap and there are limits to the number of people they can accept each year.
A bankruptcy will cause significantly higher prices for everything in the future from any loans to life, auto and homeowners insurance for that person. And with the new BK laws going into effect you may have to pay it back anyway.
Prefacing this by saying that my personal belief is in a single payer universal insurance scheme for all citizens.
In many cities in the northeast, hospitals and clinics are not allowed to refuse treatment based on the ability to pay. All people with emergency illnesses must receive the same level of care regardless of insurance.
On the other hand, you make a good point about the new bankruptcy laws. I doubt that someone who plans his financial situation around avoiding health insurance premiums would be able to wriggle out simply by bankruptcy. But if the non-insured is "judgment proof," bankruptcy may not be his only recourse.