Reply #18: It's a subsidy. [View All]

[Xithras]

People without insurance or money walk into the ER's for medical treatment, and they have to treat them. The doctors need to be paid, the nurses need to be paid, the electric bill needs to be paid, etc, etc. Because these patients can't pay, the hospital has to eat the loss...but HOSPITAL still have to pay for all of the costs associated with treating that patient. They fix the problem by jacking up the prices on other patients who do have insurance, which means you pay a fortune for things that should be cheap. It's not illegal or shady, but is a legitimate way to offset financial losses.

The Rethugs fight against a national healthcare plan because they don't want to pay for medical care for the poor. What they JUST DON'T GET is that they're ALREADY paying for it. Every time they pay their insurance bill, they're subsidizing healthcare for the poor. Every time they pay a doctors bill, they're subsidizing healthcare for the poor. Every time they agree to wait two hours to get into the ER, they're contributing their time to the subsidizing of healthcare for the poor.

Apparently they LIKE that status quo, but it's horribly inefficient and is costing us ALL a lot more than it should.