> you are making a choice on whether someone gets life-saving care, or lives in immense pain
Is the care life-saving or pain-preventing?
There is an additional option: the person pays for it. Or someone else pays for it. Since the 1980s U.S. emergency rooms have been required to provide life-saving care regardless of whether someone can pay.
> normalized violence
It is not violence to fail to reimburse someone.
If someone cannot pay his bills, then he declares bankruptcy, the debts are wiped out, his creditors take a haircut and he moves on with his life. In many/most states he will get to retain his home and perhaps his vehicle. It’s not the end of the world?
Is it ideal? No, of course not. It’s better than dying, and of course it’s not murder.
Those can be the same thing for some people. Chronic pain patients have a dramatically worse mortality rate.
> If someone cannot pay his bills, then he declares bankruptcy, the debts are wiped out, his creditors take a haircut and he moves on with his life.
I’ve done this. Due to medical expenses, in fact. It costs money up front, and was difficult to navigate as a well educated person with family support.
The idea that this is an easy option for a single person with no supports and a disabling condition is insane.
Many doctors won’t see you after, either. Bankruptcy doesn’t mean people you burned have to keep doing business with you.
Is the care life-saving or pain-preventing?
There is an additional option: the person pays for it. Or someone else pays for it. Since the 1980s U.S. emergency rooms have been required to provide life-saving care regardless of whether someone can pay.
> normalized violence
It is not violence to fail to reimburse someone.
If someone cannot pay his bills, then he declares bankruptcy, the debts are wiped out, his creditors take a haircut and he moves on with his life. In many/most states he will get to retain his home and perhaps his vehicle. It’s not the end of the world?
Is it ideal? No, of course not. It’s better than dying, and of course it’s not murder.