Yes, lack of insurance (because you could buy the friggin outfit with pocket change so you didn't buy insurance) is grounds for terrible treatment - and being overcharged as well.
I've been on the "just let them die" ward in the hospital after a serious injury myself over that one. Thank god my posse showed up and straitened them out, handed them a card from my lawyer and my accountant, and asked those turkeys which one they'd rather be dealing with real soon. (They all worked for me and had a vested interest in my survival). It was kind of difficult for me to explain things to them without a right cheek and a right half of jaw, myself. Just no insurance card in the wallet they pick-pocketed told them all they wanted to know, so they treated me like crap. All they cared about was where the money was going to come from. Imagine a nurse with a clip board full of papers by the bedside asking all those money questions before you're allowed to be treated, and you really can't talk. No answers, no treatment.
But, after a nasty accident with a blown up rifle (bolt tore the right side of my face off), until that happened, I was on a ward, no painkillers, no treatment, holding the side of my face on with a bloody T shirt for 10 hours...with a shattered jaw.
I finally did get good treatment once they were straightened out. But my guys had to buy pain meds from the floor drug dealer nurse to give to the other patients, as the nurses had stolen them to take themselves - a floor full of zombie nurses, it was real obvious (and nice to have witnesses). I wasn't in too much pain - that much damage cuts the nerves, but it was hard to be there with all the other patients screaming till they got the meds we paid for them to get (again). I'm sure they were billed for them too.
Needless to say - don't fuck with a hurt guy who can buy the ward with pocket change, even if he does show up dressed like a bum (it was the weekend). And yes, they did deal with my lawyer, and we won HARD. I paid the surgeon and gas passer out of pocket - cheap. The hospital paid me to settle out of court and not take it on the local news channels, as we could have taken the whole outfit down. Before that, when discussing the ridiculous bill for non-treatment, they even admitted to me that insurance companies pay far less (around 40%) - they have negotiating power, and they make it up ripping off the rest of us. Carillon is the name of the outfit, should you be about to be in their clutches. Avoid.
There's something to be said for having a sharp lawyer on the other phone when people say things like that...
True story and I have pictures, but they are far too gory to post up here, even if you hate my guts. Or maybe especially, as some are showing in them.
This has to change. Someone pointed out on BBurg today that if health "care" costs keep going up at the current rate, they will be 100% of GDP in a few years. They think, hey, it's your life, we can charge as we please and are entitled to anything we want as a result of some half forgotten arcane knowledge and ownership of a license to kill.
Not in my book. I since have found a doctor that works for barter - and she needed a lot of computer work done...nice deal.