system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: In American healthcare, what happens to a patient who isn't insured and cannot afford medical bills?

I'm from the UK where healthcare is thankfully free for everyone. If a patient in America has no insurance or means to pay medical bills, are they left to suffer with their symptoms and/or death? I know the latter is unlikely but whats the loop hole?

Edit: healthcare in UK isn't technically free. Everybody pays taxes and the amount that they pay is based on their income. But there are no individual bills for individual health care.
gpt
60 percent of all bankruptcy in the US are tied to medical bills. 

The common refrain you hear is "anyone can go to the emergency room and get treatment" and that is not untrue. However, people do not go to the ER for routine care that can prevent problems. If you went to the ER because you had a strange growth they would identify it as a cancerous tumor but that treatment wouldn't be an emergency so you would either have to find charity care or die a slow painful death.  Some local governments (states or counties) have welfare care (the dole for health care) but you have to qualify & that takes time and you probably have to not have a job or a very poor paying one.