Yeah the overall situation just really sucks in the US. While I never been in a psych ward or any hospital before, from stories that I've heard, most patients who can't pay it off either go to negotiate with the hospital on some payment plan, they keep fighting with the billing department (over months, years even), and then worst yet if they can't pay, it either goes to collections, the hospital could sue (get a judgment on any properties, assets, garnish wages), and/or the patient ends up filing for bankruptcy (which hurts their credit even more).
I agree with @BlueWidow that the people who are involuntarily hospitalized should not be required to pay for hospital bills and any services rendered (or more accurately, forced/imposed on) to the patient and the person who is taking the person to the hospital should be on the hook (the state, concerned individuals, etc.) for them. This is basically kicking the patient while the patient is already down (due process violated, dignity, freedom of movement, civil liberties, etc.) and if anything, only makes the situation even worse. I do wish that less hospitals will admit patients in over time and perhaps if more people decide to stand up against this unjust system then perhaps the hospitals will be even less likely to commit patients especially knowing the harm it does and the fact that patients aren't willing to pay for something that is imposed on them without their consent/agreement.
Personally, I think that involuntary commitement should be abolished because not only does it violate one's privacy, freedom, but also due process since it's basically detaining someone against their will under suspicion that they are a danger to others, oneself, even though said person hasn't committed any crimes to begin with. It is also very degrading the way that the system treats the patient (almost like a prisoner/criminal), but that's another topic altogether.
I agree with everything you said. I also feel like some hospitals may use it as some kind of a scam to earn themselves more money from people that ordinarily they wouldn't be able to get money out of. They find some person who's already in mental distress, but who doesn't need to be in the hospital. Or maybe just a random person like I was who was just tired from a physical condition that has absolutely nothing to do with depression or any other mental issue. Then they claim that person did or said something that they didn't say or do and therefore they are "justified" in involuntarily putting them in the hospital. Then they can keep them in the hospital for a minimum of 72 hours, and many times a lot longer (especially if they are a minor). And they are earning money off of them that entire time.
This happened to me over and over when I was a teenager. I got caught up in a giant insurance scam that was being conducted by a ring of criminals that included: doctors, therapists, caseworkers, judges, and a bunch of other so-called professional people.
The way it worked was, they would find a vulnerable minor and make them a ward of the state. Then, because they were a minor and didn't know the laws or their rights, they would put them in and out of the hospital at will and try to use them to collect as much money as possible from the insurance companies. I was placed in the hospital when I didn't need to be in there. I was released with full bottles of pills when I would be saying, as I went out the door, that I was going to swallow every pill. The thing is, they WANTED me to swallow the pills. Then they'd have a reason to put me back in there and squeeze more money out of my dad's insurance.
They would also constantly do things like tell me that I was leaving the hospital, including once when they told me my sister was downstairs waiting to come up and get me and take me home. (A total lie) I'd get all excited thinking that I was finally going to leave the hospital. Then sometimes less than 10 minutes later they'd come back and say,
"Oh sorry, we've changed our mind. You can't leave the hospital after all", which I would, of course, get extremely upset about. They would then use my normal response, a response anyone would have to being emotionally jerked around the way these people were doing to me, as an excuse to keep me in the hospital longer. What I found out later was that behind the scenes, one of their schemes was to tell an underage patient that they were going home. They would get the person all excited about leaving the hospital, and then after some amount of time, they would go back in and announce that they had decided that the person wasn't ready to go home after all. This would obviously make the person upset and they would react as such. Then the schemers would call the insurance company and state that the person couldn't leave the hospital because they were having an anxiety attack or a violent reaction or something. Then the insurance company would approve an extended stay in the hospital. Or, in another scenario, I would be in my therapist's office. My therapist would start saying horrible things to upset me. Then when I got upset, my therapist would say that I needed to go to the hospital immediately because I was being over emotional and I was "a danger to myself and others". None of which was true. I was just having a normal reaction to a horrible thing that they said to me. I was also fed all kinds of drugs against my will that caused me to have various reactions and emotions and that they would then report as excuses for me to be hospitalized so that they could collect even more money off my dad's insurance. It was all a huge manipulation. They were manipulating the situation and taking anything I did or said completely out of context and reporting it that way to the insurance company in order to collect more money. I was nothing more to them than a vehicle through which they could collect money. The fact that they were emotionally manipulating me and using me and the fact that I was already in a very serious and distressed emotional state didn't mean anything to them. When they looked at me they saw nothing more than dollar signs.
And I was not the only one they did this to.
From what I understand, the scheme was run by various sets of professionals in various parts of the United States all throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For all I know, it may still be going on. I wasn't allowed my own lawyer until 2 years into being made a ward of the state. It was only then that some of my rights started getting considered.
Therefore, one of the first things I did after being forced into the hospital as an adult 10 years ago, was to tell my husband to call our insurance company and tell them that I had been forced into the hospital against my will for no reason at all and that they were wasting their money.
I have a feeling if the insurance companies would cut a lot of this stuff off, or at least question more as to why the person is being forcibly placed in the hospital, they wouldn't be nearly as likely to do it if they weren't making as much or any money off of it.
