I won't argue that hospitals should turn away people who are uninsured if they really need help, but several times when I have been in the emergency room for one reason or another I've noticed a lot of people who don't really belong there, with what seem to be minor or imaginary problems. I doubt they would be there if they didn't know it was free.
We owe a lot of this to the tort lawyers. Set some limits on them and a lot of hospital expenses could be slashed.
We also owe it to the state legislatures that keep mandating new benefits that insurers must cover. Since only suckers like me actually pay for their own health insurance, it's all "free".
"We owe a lot of this to the tort lawyers. Set some limits on them and a lot of hospital expenses could be slashed."
From an article by Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.): Since 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) has required emergency rooms to provide care to people regardless of their ability to pay. There is no federal reimbursement for EMTALA treatment. The cost is imposed on the hospitals and doctors that provide the services. It is also imposed on all Americans in the form of higher healthcare and insurance costs.
Inviting as it may be to some to blame tort lawyers for everything, the villian in this tale is the usual suspect: the socialistic government in D.C. that we keep in power. We already have national healthcare for the "poor" and the "aged". Everyone else is carrying the load. You can see this when you get your hospital bill and you have been charged $50.00 for a box of Kleenex in your room. The solution is to get the government out of health care. But that would mean the loss of a lot of votes for our legislators who buy votes with our tax dollars and it is also opposed by most of the medical establishment. (It's true that the medical groups want the government not to tell them how to run their practice, but they're all for the federal dollars that flow into the system from Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They just want the reimbursement rates increased.)