I've heard the same thing--and bought into it too. It's false. Receiving (and paying for) medical care after losing insurance benefits is a big eye-opener, believe me. Those who are insured aren't paying more to 'cover' the uninsured. They're paying more than Medicare patients, true, but the uninsured get charged much more than those with some type of insurance. I can tell you this from personal experience, but you don't have to take my anonymous word for it. Here ya go:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=1224Since most hospitals can increase their net revenue (from private insurers, Medicare, and workers comp plans) by raising their list prices, there is a strong incentive to keep increasing list prices. Indeed, data show that list prices have increased rapidly and substantially in recent years...
Not only do the uninsured pay for all their care out-of-pocket, but they face higher fees for the same procedure than the insured since they do not benefit from the bargaining clout of an insurance company...
Hospital list prices will continue to rise faster than costs and net prices, further exacerbating the hardship on the uninsured.
http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/07/19/price-gouging-by-doctors-and-hospitals/When patients are not protected by large private or public insurers, doctors and hospitals charge them astonishingly more than patients with Medicare or managed-care insurance. Some price difference would make sense, because insurers offer providers large volume and economies of scale. But we are not talking about discounts of 10, or 20, or even 30 percent. Providers routinely double, triple, or even quadruple prices for unprotected patients. Such huge mark-ups can only be regarded as price-gouging — exploiting market power to charge prices virtually unrelated to actual cost or market value.
A comprehensive analysis of data hospitals report to Medicare shows that, on average, hospitals charge uninsured patients two-and-a-half times more than they charge insured patients and three times more than their actual costs. In some states mark-ups average four-fold.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:Wz7gRjDJvLwJ:www.joplinindependent.com/display_article.php/jhu-ps1178682049+medical+bill+markups+to+uninsured&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us"In the 1950s, the uninsured and poor were charged the lowest prices for medical service. Today they pay the highest prices, often two to three times more than what a person with health insurance would pay for hospital care," said Anderson, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Anderson's analysis determined the ratio between the prices hospitals charged self-pay patients and Medicare-allowable costs, which are the costs that Medicare has determined to be what it costs to provide care to all patients. In 2004, the ratio was 3.07, which means that for every $100 in Medicare-allowable costs, the average hospital charged a self-pay patient $307. The charge-to-cost ratio was greatest at for-profit hospitals-4.10 compared to a 2.49 ratio at public hospitals.
The study also shows that the gap between the amount self-pay patients are charged and what Medicare pays for hospital services more than doubled over the past 20 years. Anderson argues that the widening gap in prices makes it increasingly difficult for the uninsured to pay their medical bills.
There are a lot of factors pushing up your premiums, one of them being the GREED of insurance companies as well as for-profit health care enterprises. It's not the fault of the uninsured. You and others with insurance are not 'carrying' the uninsured. Far from it. Just wanted to clear that up, because it's a common misconception that fosters misplaced and unnecessary resentment. It's time for it to go away now.
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