Correct. However, the reason it doesn't happen today is because there are federal laws requiring hospitals to treat all emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay. With of course federal, state and local government subsidies to the hospitals involved, or they go out of business.
I believe some of your claims are flatly untrue. You claim, apparently, that nobody in America has ever gone without needed medical care, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. I assume you carry insurance yourself.
Why? If having it or not makes no difference in the care you will receive, why do you bother to cough up the rather large sum each year to be insured.
While I'm a huge fan of the free market, those who try to apply free market principles fully to health care fall into a logical trap. They claim that Obamacare is insupportable because it will add 25M or 50M (or whatever the number is) of new health care consumers to the system, without increasing the support system that provides that care. This is absolutely true.
However, by making this statement they are agreeing that this same 25M or 50M people are presently not being provided the health care they need.
BTW, I'm surprisingly old. As stated, I dislike statism and collectivism, but I recognize that true free market principles, for cultural and political reasons, are NOT going to be fully applied to health care. Given this fact, then it behooves conservatives not to insist on going down with the free market ship, but rather to fight for the most efficient and least liberty-destructive system that we can achieve.
“the reason it doesn’t happen today is because there are federal laws requiring hospitals to treat all emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay.”
It didn’t happen before that particular law and it didn’t happen after the law passed and it isn’t happening today. History proves that the American people are a charitable lot and that they charitably care for one another.
“I believe some of your claims are flatly untrue. You claim, apparently, that nobody in America has ever gone without needed medical care, regardless of whether they have insurance or not.”
Wrong. My statement is that those that WANT medical care get medical care. Before the law you cited we had charitable hospitals that voluntarily cared for those that had a need but not the funds. Post the law we absorbed those costs into the insurance roles. Either way, no one that WANTED care was turned down.
“Why? If having it or not makes no difference in the care you will receive, why do you bother to cough up the rather large sum each year to be insured.”
This is a moronic statement on its face.
“While I’m a huge fan of the free market, those who try to apply free market principles fully to health care fall into a logical trap.”
So, you agree that sometimes you have to kill the free market to save the free market....
“However, by making this statement they are agreeing that this same 25M or 50M people are presently not being provided the health care they need.”
Ah, leftist projection into my statements. Clearly, you recognize your own logical falacy and have now reverted to leftist tacticts. I actually have stated that Americans get the health care that they need. You instead like to equate INSURANCE with CARE. They are simply not the same, but one feels good...
“As stated, I dislike statism and collectivism, but I recognize that true free market principles, for cultural and political reasons, are NOT going to be fully applied to health care.”
Feel free to give up all you like, however your complacency is not going to make a difference. The health care industry WILL be severely degraded in America. It is a factual and predictable outcome. Collectivism kills, period! History is filled with examples, however feel free to deny history all you like.