No. If I go to a hospital and get things done, and do not give them an insurance card, they can send me a bill for whatever numbers they want, and I am legally required to pay that!
The fact that you can often negotiate when you have a large debt that you are unlikely to pay does not change the fact that the debt is legitimate
Sure, but that is not relevant here because the person in the article did not receive a bill for $69k. My comments were strictly about the “journalist” painting the wrong picture about this specific scenario in order to incite emotion, presumably in order to get more people to click.
The fact that you can often negotiate when you have a large debt that you are unlikely to pay does not change the fact that the debt is legitimate