So are you saying that emergency rooms should require proof of payment before they operate on someone? What if the person is incapacitated but has insurance but cannot prove it? What if he's been stabbed and mugged? Should the ER refuse him because might not have insurance and might not be able to pay his bill.
I would think that emergency room patients fall under the term "market failure" item: the purchaser is often incapacitated, and some sort of safeguard needs to exist to protect the ER against people who cannot pay. You simply cannot have a market in these conditions.
I'm saying that privately run hospitals didn't used to worry about it so much BEFORE the ton of government crap came crashing down on them. Insurance companies weren't as screwed up because our courts didn't used to allow people to pass off their own stupidity on the rest of us.
If you are so worried about some complete stranger being able to pay his hospital tab, you pay for him. I don't know him and I don't care. I'm tired of you leeches assuaging your own guilt by robbing my pockets to pay for it.