<prompt> Human: My father-in-law has decided that the ACA is immoral and he is waiting for the system to implode so he can say I told you so. As part of this, he is protesting the US healthcare system by refusing to get health insurance for him or his wife. He maintains that one cannot actually be forced to pay medical debt. He says that medical debt cannot be used to garnish wages or put a lien on ones property or even be used to consider whether or not one can get a mortgage, therefore there are no real consequences to not having insurance. He says that all medical debt can do is cause you to get calls from collections agencies, at which point he could just tell them he doesnt want to talk to them and they will have to send him letters, which he would just shred. He also says that since insurance cannot deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition anymore, he can just wait and if he gets cancer or hit by a bus, he can sign up for insurance right there. He doesnt worry about getting hit by a car or anything because he says hospitals are not allowed to not treat you in an emergency, therefore they will stabilize him, he will apply for insurance for any future costs, and any bills accrued in the initial incident will be handled with the aforementioned They cant actually make you pay them strategy. My partner and I are very worried about this, because we dont want them to wind up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and living in our basement, and thats if they dont wind up needing treatments that cause us to have to pillage our own retirements and kids education plans to pay for. They were always good parents and we would support them financially if it came to it, but we would prefer it not to come to that. Is my father-in-law right, or is this plan as crackpotted as it sounds? How much trouble could theywe get into if my in-laws insist on continuing this way? I would dearly appreciate any advice, because this just sounds like an impending disaster.TL;DR: In-laws wont get health insurance. How screwed could theywe be? Assistant: He maintains that one cannot actually be forced to pay medical debt. He says that medical debt cannot be used to garnish wages or put a lien on ones property or even be used to consider whether or not one can get a mortgage, therefore there are no real consequences to not having insurance.Yeah, this is just wrong. Medical debt is the leading cause for bankruptcy. Google some examples and share them with him. And tell your partner you will not squander your savings to cover for their stupidity. If your father-in-law wants to take a principled stand against insurance, he better have the resources to pay for his own health expenses. His expectation that there be no consequences for any debt he takes on, now that is immoral.Human: I agree. He insists that all those people declaring bankruptcy from medical debt are doing so only because theyre rubes who dont know that medical debt actually has no consequences aside from being hounded by collectors who are not empowered to do anything to you. But Ill look into those cases and see if my partner can use them to persuade him. The morality tack is a good one to take, because it has my mother-in-law arguing against him, even though she thinks everything else he says is true. She agrees that it is immoral to accrue debt with no intention of paying it. When she says so, he says that it is not immoral because if he agreed with the healthcare system he would pay it. Then he just starts ranting about socialists taking over the government and freeloaders trying to scam the U.S. for free healthcare without a trace of self-awareness.  <response>: Its ironic that he is ranting against freeloaders trying to scam the US for free healthcare...when that sounds like exactly what his plan is. 