This is less difficult than it sounds. Move to Texas, and keep all your assets in retirement accounts, home equity in your primary residence, and possibly annuities if you've made too much money for that all to hold everything. Note that this should be done before possibly incurring debts.
Wouldn't it be easier instead for healthcare billing not to contain so many gotchas?
Sure, but improving your BATNA helps your negotiations even if you don't need to exercise it. The bill gets handled with opening a dispute and sending a "give me documentation for an implied regulatory complaint" letter. If things devolve into a lawsuit or threat thereof, I tell them my financial situation and what they can expect from a lawsuit and offer to settle for a nominal amount.
>Wouldn't it be easier instead for healthcare billing not to contain so many gotchas?
Well yeah, but I can't change the healthcare billing system, while I can change how my finances are structured.
It is absolute insanity that this is even a thing to consider.
The funniest thing about it is that if you do this, you are effectively socializing your personal losses and letting everyone else insured through your provider bear the cost for your healthcare. If that's not an argument for actually socializing healthcare costs for everyone, I don't know what is.
But, unfortunately, it's currently impossible to set a maximum price you could wind up owing due to receiving medical care. Any provider you go to could end up incurring out-of-network charges and wind up balance billing you. The only fix is to cap the actual damage of creditor judgements in general.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/out-of-network-anesthesiologist...
