Somehow I'll bet if it got down to the nitty gritty, a doctor would not turn you away, but maybe work out an arrangement.
Working out an arrangement is fine, as long as it's reasonable to both parties. For instance, if I have a disease which runs me $100,000 in medical bills, I don't think it's fair that my house is confiscated and i'm in the poorhouse for being unable to pay. The problem isn't that most Americans are
unwilling to pay, it's that they are unable to. Furthermore, it isn't like Americans who come down with expensive illnesses made the voluntary choice to contract those diseases. Nor would they likely survive without medical assistance.
A friend of mine went hiking earlier this year, and was bitten by a copperhead. He was taken to the emergency room, and because the bite was above the knee, he was given a shot of antivenom. Since he's uninsured, he's expected to pay the bill in full. Now, I could see if the bill was something reasonable - say $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000 dollars. That'd be a difficult expense for him, but he could swing a monthly cost if he made a lot of cuts. Unfortunately, the cost of that shot was $11,000. That's just for the shot, not his entire medical bill. So working as a waiter struggling to pay for school and a small apartment, he now has the additional cost of forking over the cash for an antivenom shot and a hospital visit.
As harsh a payment as this may seem to someone making a waiter's salary, it could have been much worse. Suppose it had been something like cancer? What then? Should he be expected to voluntarily refuse treatment because he wouldn't be able to afford it? Or should they treat him, charge him anyway and bleed him dry for whatever he has - take his old car, any possessions he has, and leave him busted and in bankruptcy? Or even worse, should he just be flat-out refused treatment, and left to die because he wouldn't be able to afford it?
Sorry, I don't see any of those as fair, which is why I chose option 1 as the least fair of any of those choices.