What ACTUALLY Happens if someone in a hospital can’t pay their medical bill?
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In the United States of America you must provide lifesaving care, regardless of ability to pay. If a person gets out of the hospital and cannot pay the bill then that bill will eventually go to collections. Eventually, if a person doesn’t pay, they could have their paycheck garnished or be sued.
In very serious cases a person can go through a legal process known as “bankruptcy” where, to massively oversimplify, they essentially tell a court “I have no money and can never pay off these debts” and the court will lower the amount of those debts. It should be noted that bankruptcy is a very complicated procedure with a ton of drawbacks, so it’s not like a get out of jail free card.
This is, sadly, quite common. A 2019 [survey](https://files.kff.org/attachment/Report-KFF-LA-Times-Survey-of-Adults-with-Employer-Sponsored-Health-Insurance) by the Kaiser Family Foundation and LA Times found that *9%* of people who had health insurance through their employer had declared bankruptcy due to medical bills at some point in their life.
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