I Just Had To Walk Away. . .

A while ago, I got into a little bit of a Facebook argument (I know, real mature, right?) with some lady. A friend was in a bad place with some back pain he was having and wan't sure what to do.  Not having insurance, he wanted to try to find something other than the ER, since he intended on paying his bill, and didn't want to pay so much money.

He was on Facebook asking for recommendations on what to do.  I gave him some recommendations on places he could go get checked out for relatively low cost in our community.

Well, some other lady told him just to go to the ER.  She said it would be expensive, but not to worry about it because she just walked away from her bill and it never showed up on her credit report, so he should just go for it.

Weeeellllll, as you can imagine, that just really pissed me off, and I wasn't able to go on without responding to her idiocy.  I mentioned how people walking away from their bill means less money for the hospital, which means freeze on raises, freeze on 401k match, freeze on hiring to help reduce other nurses' work loads, freeze on tuition assistance, and suspension of other benefits.  I explained to her that the ones who suffer are the ones who provide her the care, not some big money grubbing corporation (not that it would be ok then either).

Her response?

"It was a LIFE or DEATH situation where I was having an ALLERGIC REACTION!!!  I had to go!  Besides, it took an hour for them to see me and all they did for me was give me Benadryl, so the bill was outrageous anyway!"

At this point, I "walked" away from the conversation.  I wanted to give her a lesson on financial responsibility, but I didn't.

I wanted to tell her that, if it was a life or death situation, then the ER staff obviously saved her life since she is still thieving oxygen alive today.  I wanted to tell her that if, indeed, the ER staff saved her life, then isn't forking over a little bit of dough so that they can have a cost of living raise at the end of the year a small price to pay for her life?  Is there really such a thing as a ridiculous bill for saving one's life?

Also, I truly don't think it could have been that much of a life or death situation if they felt comfortable letting you wait for an hour while they saw to people who were probably coding and bleeding out.  An hour really isn't a very long wait anyway.

I understanding that she was probably scared, which is why she went to the ER, but does that really excuse her behavior of just walking away from her bill?  Then recommending somebody else do the same thing?

What do you think?