Not these days. These days hospitals are legally required to save your life if they are able. However, that won’t stop them from sticking you with crippling debt afterwards. Which, has lead to people taking their own lives.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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A lot of people don’t bother to pay the debt and just let it go to collections. That means the people with insurance end up paying for it anyway.
You know what it’s called in more civilized places when you can walk into an emergency room and get the help you need and someone else subsidizes that because you can’t afford it? Socialized medicine.
But in the US, we insert a middle man to make it more expensive —so we can tell ourselves it’s not.
That is technically true but the reality is not as simple. Hospitals can determine something is not immediately life threatening. Or they might treat an immediate threat and discharge leading to death soon after... Things are still very bad here and it's very scary.
Late reply, didn't see this post before:
This is actually a common plot point in a lot of Chinese dramas. Like there's a character that need an emergency life-saving surgery but the hospital requires the next-of-kin to pay a large amount money first, which they cant afford, but then they have a rich relative they haven't talked to in a while, so they frantically try to find their phone number / address and try to get in contact. It's kinda so overdone, like it's the "cliche" of Chinese drama.
Not sure if this is still a thing anymore, but there is no laws in China that requires hospitals to treat you if you can't pay.