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Because the hospital is paying for all the people who believed the tripe about "free health care" and didn't set up any plan for getting sick or injured, and so dumped all their expenses on the next ten patients to come in. Which, it sounds like, includes you.
How do you feel now, about this imagined "free health care"?
Making assumptions about me, BRAVO!
I think the scam-billing is a huge problem.....fixing that problems would be real HC-REFORM, as opposed to Osamacare.
The question is not 'do Americans deserve free healthcare.' The question is should healthcare for the citizens of the US be a huge for-profit industry? That is what is so very appalling in this country. The middle-men insurance companies reap huge profits. Doctors reap huge profits. Medical equipment companies reap huge profits. Pharmaceutical companies reap huge profits. All of these industries are getting wealthy off of illness. People have very little choice in when they get sick or what illness they have. Paying for care is one thing. Being ripped off when you have no choice but to seek health care is another. Medicine in other industrialized country is not the huge for-profit industry it is here.
Where does this foolish idea of "free" health care come from?
I live in Canada and it is painfully obvious most Americans have no idea how much tax we pay for what translates into the most basic coverage. There are good reasons why supplementary private insurance coverage is a coveted employee benefit here.
Free healthcare? How about free food and free housing? I'd rather have those then free healthcare. How about no income taxes? And free clothes. Really, why should we have to pay for clothes? If you try to go around naked you'll get arrested for indecent exposure. It just doesn't seem right that we have to pay for this stuff.
Where does this foolish idea of "free" health care come from?
I live in Canada and it is painfully obvious most Americans have no idea how much tax we pay for what translates into the most basic coverage. There are good reasons why supplementary private insurance coverage is a coveted employee benefit here.
lol, those Americans are typically liberals. They like "FREE" stuff.... on the tax payers dime.
I was talking to a couple from Canada last month and they were saying that they buy insurance, they get better care where if they didn't they would not as good of care and would have to wait forever to get it.
There are Americans that understand that nothing is free.
Your premise is refuted here, as healthcare is not free, and it is not inexpensive
Last update 25.10.11 Extracted on 06.01.13 Source of Data Eurostat UNIT Euro per inhabitant ICHA_HC Health care expenditure ICHA_HP All providers of health care
UNIT Euro per inhabitant ICHA_HF Private household out-of-pocket expenditure
Romania .......63.95 Germany....... 403.33 United States....... 697.13
Norway .......805.54 Switzerland....... 1,590.18
Source: Database EuroStat: The European Commission of the European Union.
Thanks to Obamacare, the private household out-of-pocket expenditures will be increasing for Americans.
This graph from the OECD also refutes your entire premise...
It will increase unemployment and slow true economic growth, creating massive distress for Americans.
Free Market reforms are necessary to reduce the cost of healthcare, which will in turn reduce the cost of health plan coverage.
Since healthcare is intra-State Commerce, such reforms must take place at the State level, although the pseudo-federal government can rescind regulations that impede the Free Market and drive up the cost of healthcare, which in turn drives up the cost of health plan coverage.
The government may also levy special taxes against hospitals to coerce Free Market reforms.
No effect......since you have already claimed that healthcare is free or inexpensive in other States, then illegals would be stupid to come to the US, right?
Where you frozen in carbonite for the last year?
Your link is irrelevant.
The burden of proof is upon you to prove that:
1] Under the Free Market, the cost really was $55,000;
2] Since the hospital accepted $11,000, then that is proof that Market value of services rendered never was $55,000 and that the hospital was attempting to price-gouge.
3] It's possible that the price of $11,000 is still inflated.....
...unless and until their are Free Market reforms in place we well never know the real cost....
Mircea
I submit to you that you can never expect to see "free market" healthcare in the presence of "health insurance". Insurance, by nature is a precautionary protection against an unexpected event, such as car insurance, or fire insurance. Surely no one expects to cash in on that insurance, and the costs of that insurance is predicated upon many more people not needing to make a claim against it, than those that do need to. This is not the case with health care ... it's the exact opposite. People have been purchasing so called health care insurance with the express intent to use it, and with a reasonable expectation that they will need to use it ... and sooner rather than later. This destroys the workable model of "insurance" as being paid for by many, but used by few. So it could never work, and the problems of astronomical cost increase, price gouging, corruption are at the very center of scheme which masqurades as "insurance".
The only way we can expect to restore free market concepts to healthcare, and restore sanity to the cost structure is to eliminate health insurance entirely ... as health insurance is the central facilitator for these high costs. Conversely, the best way to guarantee higher prices is to expand insurance coverages. Hence, ObamaCare, and it's mandate by law to expand coverage to everyone. And along with such mandate, and elimination of the ability of the individual consumer to say no thanks, that cost too much.... expect these prices to go viral and nuclear! SUCKERS!!! Yes, those who cheer this are the greatest suckers that have ever lived ... yes, it's such a wonderful idea for government to force you to buy something ... and in so naming this monstrously insidious con job the "Affordable Care Act", we take Orwellian double think to all new levels of extremes. The whole thing is deliberately designed to rape the bloody daylights out of everyone including the low level participants (doctors and other personnel involved in health services delivery). Yes, you will buy insurance, slave ... and yes, you will accept that insurance doc! And yes, we the crafters of this most transparent scheme will be laughing all the way to the banks we own ... hahahaha!!!
The only free market solution is a "pay as you go" system, just like everything else, where the individual is just as responsible for paying for healthcare services as they are for electricity, or gas, or groceries, or rent, or plasma TV's. Within that structure, costs would have to remain in line with what average incomes could afford to pay, or what they are willing to pay based on the individual's cost benefit measurement. The structure of health insurance plans pool large volumes of money that then can be tapped at higher and higher rates, and there is no cost benefit analysis considered by the individual, because he's paid his insurance premium, so he has no incentive not to take advantage of the services, whether there is a real pressing need or not. He wants to get his money's worth ... and he also doesn't question the charges, so long as the service and charges are covered. He doesn't care if the office visit cost $50, or $175 ... he's not paying out of pocket. But if he's paying out of pocket, he's going to question every charge, and he's going to shop and look for the best service/price alternative, which encourages competition among healthcare providers.
It is precisely these large pools of money collected from participants in healthcare insurance plans that allow these high costs which an individual couldn't or wouldn't agree to pay. If you were admitted to the hospital, and upon leaving, you received a bill with a charge of $50 for two aspirins ... you'd pitch a fit, and demand to know why you are being charged $25 for a .05 pill ... but since the insurance company is paying, nobody cares.
Here's the dirty little secret nobody seems to understand ... there is really not an adversarial relationship between healthcare providers, patients and insurance companies. The insurance companies are merely the administrators of the large pools of funds to which healthcare providers are guaranteed payments for their services. The costs for which providers can charge are based solely on what the insurance companies decide is reasonable and customary charges which are covered. In this respect, the insurance companies are accomplices with the healthcare providers in facilitating high profit cost structure. As the pressure of those increasing costs begin to deplete the pool of funds, premiums rise to meet the burden. This allows the prices to again increase, and premiums rise again. This means that the individual patient is not in control of the costs of services ... the insurance companies are. The insurance companies are therefore nothing more than collection agents for the medical industry providers, who collect payments before services are rendered, rather than individuals paying (and scrutinizing) the bill AFTER services are rendered.
Very few people seem to grasp this situation, but then again, that comes as no surprise since the majority also operate under the naive notion that an industry who reaps huge profits from sickness, are the go to source for facilitating good health. Good health=lower profits, and poorer health=higher profits! Which of the two is in the best interests of the medical industry .... better public health, or poorer public health?
The simple answer to that basic question also explains why we as a nation are paying the highest amounts in healthcare costs, while the general health of the public continues to decline.
The only questions remaining is 1) how much of this declining health is being deliberately caused ... and 2) when will the public at large wake up to fundamental reality, and abandon their child-like naivete' which assumes that the industry wants them to be healthy, or would strive to achieve that outcome.
Sure, just an industry filled with "Florence Nightingales" .... "I'm from Merck, and I want you to e healthy, and in no need of my medicines". This seems to be what the public predominantly believes to be reality ... it is in fact, extreme LA LA fantasy land. Time to grow up and stop believing in the tooth fairy.
lol, those Americans are typically liberals. They like "FREE" stuff.... on the tax payers dime.
I was talking to a couple from Canada last month and they were saying that they buy insurance, they get better care where if they didn't they would not as good of care and would have to wait forever to get it.
There are Americans that understand that nothing is free.
I have supplementary insurance. It covers dental, ambulance, private rooms, therapeutic massage, glasses, things like that. It does NOT translate to better health care.
My son's company does not offer supplementary insurance, but all his health care needs are met by virtue of his being a Canadian citizen.
Do Americans deserve to pay for their healthcare because there is no such thing as free...
Well actually there is. If you are on medicaid that person is getting it for free.
Just have a single payer, Medicare for All with a Medicare tax paid for by ALL.
Get rid of everything thing else.
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