The Price went up when the big employers and Medicare started covering everything under the sun, and we the “patient” continue to be left out of any responsibility to care what the price is or even necessity of the medical care we receive. So, up goes the Price. How much does it really ‘cost’ to provide hospital care? You will never find that out— Deep discounts are given to Medicare, Medicaid and many large private insurances, and then the hospitals can declare huge amounts of undercompensated care which helps keep the not-for-profit status. It’s long overdue to let true market forces have a chance. Time for us all to grow up and stop demanding things that won’t help and could hurt. True informed consent is needed, and transparency about potential medical outcomes.
The price also shot up when many began to use the emergency room as their primary care and didn’t pay the bill, leaving it to be spread among the rest of us.
Illegals are one of the biggest culprits of this. Illegals are the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss not only with health care issues, but social services, education, court and jail systems.
That is why I cannot get too concerned about people that want to cut this and that from the military, veterans, elderly; but never cut services to people that should not be here to begin with.
I will believe someone is serious about cutting budgets if they address the issue of the cost of illegals first.