(September 29, 2013 at 10:03 pm)Tiberius Wrote: I only recently discovered this law the other day but I think more people should be aware of it. The US has universal healthcare of sorts, but only in emergency cases:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency..._Labor_Act
Key bit:
"Patients cannot face criminal prosecution for failure to pay, even if the patient came to the hospital aware of inability to pay. Hospitals and third-party agents may not threaten patients with prosecution as a means of scaring the patient into making payment."
One of the problems with that law, Tiberius, is that it essentially forces indigent people to use the very expensive emergency room services as primary care. We essentially subsidize the care they receive anyway, so it makes more sense to treat them at a facility appropriate to the urgency of the situation.
