So how then should we handle the problem of people who can't afford their hospital bills? Refuse emergency/life saving treatment? That seems to be the only other fair option.
Shoot 'em and decrease the surplus population!
Seriously this country's going nuts when a Governor says what he said AND people think it's a good idea.
"So how then should we handle the problem of people who can't afford their hospital bills?"
Undo the rotten legislation that fostered this problem.
I live in Massachusetts and this whole crisis with uninsured patients was brought on BY THE STATE GOVERNMENT when AIDS first became a problem.
Before AIDS, insurance companies in MA could sell major medical policies to poor folk that were affordable by nearly everyone. There was no need for anyone to be uninsured except for the very poorest of the poor. Then
AIDS erupted and the state passed politically correct legislation that required MA insurance companies to insure anyone who walked through the door and wanted insurance, sick with AIDS or not.(In other states insurance companies check new customers for pre-existing conditions)
Unsurprisingly, the price of major medical coverage subsequently shot up to be almost the same as 100% coverage like an HMO.
Now, if one wants to purchase a Blue Cross family health plan, it costs over $900 per month. If one wants the individual coverage, it is $370 per month. Too expensive for folks with very moderate incomes like me.
I live one tenth of a mile from NH, and major med insurance there is about $200 per month, but I'm not allowed to buy it there.
So the state of MA gave thousands of poorer working folks a reaming, forever removing health insurance from their grasp, so it could kiss up to AIDS constituencies so that those few people in the state with AIDS could have insurance.
The state hurts a majority (the politically weak, remember) to help a few (the politically powerful).
It is disgusting, to say the least. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mitt.
Hey, here's the solution to the medical insurance problem: Eliminate medical care all together. You get sick; you die. Simple eh? No more worring about who's paying what (or not) for medical coverage. Everyone can rest easy on that issue.
It also takes care of that pesky overpopulation problem some seem to think we have.
Survival of the fittest, yep, that's the way we should do it.
But seriously (or not), whether someone has insurance or not, we're all paying for everyone else as it is. Semantics is the only difference. Your (and ours) isurance premiums are paying for someone elses medical bills, not yours. Seeing as how insurance companies are playing the averages and are actually making money - LOTS OF MONEY -. It doesn't matter, someone else will be paying YOUR bills be it government or insurance companies.
Think about it. Do you seriously thik that what you pay in premiums for one year, or ten, will actually cover one serious medical stay at a hospital for a month or two?
I didn't think so...
Just to keep the discussion on track, this proposal pertains to people who can afford to be insured. If they can afford to be insured, then the state should not be subsidizing them in the first place. And if they incur a bill that they can't pay off because they didn't get insurance but could have, it should be treated no differently from what happens when you can't pay off the mortgage.