Hospitals often want at least a little. If someone discharges their liabilities via bankruptcy, the hospitals get nothing at all. Not everyone files bankruptcy over their bills. Some people just won't, for their own reasons, and just grind away at them. Also, not every hospital bill is catastrophic. When I'm talking here, I'm only talking about major, catastrophic events: heart bypass surgeries, cancer treatments, and these types of things. I've known plenty of people who wind up in the ER for things or require surgery, who do not have insurance, but still get treated because unlike the conspiracy theorists out there who think the AMA and insurance companies are in cahoots to withhold a "cure for cancer" as if every cancer is the same or somehow cancer would not longer exist because there is a cure, medical people go into medicine to help sick people. Are there assholes? Just like everywhere else in life. But the vast majority are willing to work with people to get them the care they need, when they need it.
Do they look at a patient's finances? You bet. Would their eyes pop on Big Al's finances, if she's being honest for a change? Also you bet. They'd probably be asking her why the fuck she doesn't have insurance, too - which, I suspect, would be a reason for the weight loss consultant appointment being "months away": she is not an urgent case, so any full on treatment or surgery can wait until after the enrollment period and until her shiny new insurance kicks in next year.
Until then, apparently she will be doing the same thing she always has: eating herself to death.
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