Not that I need to belabor the point, but any “free” government health service is going to cost you. In almost every such case, it’s when Gummint decides that you’ve had enough. Here’s one from Britain’s NHS:
A hero RAF rear gunner who evaded capture by the Nazis in 1942 after being shot down over Belgium has been told to sell his house to pay medical bills as he has ‘survived too long’.
(I have to warn you that if you read that whole story, you ought to remove all throwable objects and guns out of reach — and even more so for the next one.)
Over in oh-so caring Europe comes this horrifying story:
Dutch authorities are prosecuting a doctor for euthanising an elderly woman with dementia in the first case of its kind since the practice was legalised in 2002.
The doctor, who was not named, has been charged with secretly drugging the woman’s coffee with Dormicum to make her drowsy and asking her family to hold her down as she was lethally injected in a care home in The Hague in 2016.
Whilst the 74-year-old patient was receiving the lethal injection she woke up and began fighting the doctor.
(I should also point out that the Dutch doctor was a woman, which somehow just makes it worse.)
I know, I know: “Oh, that could never happen over here in the U.S.” — until it does. When to comes to money, every government will eventually resort to violence; try to find someone who has ever dealt with the I.R.S. over an unpaid tax liability, and not felt threatened by the experience. You won’t.