[Jim Noble]

If the voters demand that hospitals take care of illegals and dead beats then it is the voters who should pay the cost directly.

But they don't.

So, should the hospital, which maintains and provides for an ICU (and not just an ICU - an operating room, an emergency room, beds, a kitchen, heat, air conditioning, a staff of hundreds (at least) ready to care for you at the drop of a hat - should that hospital, which in all probability recieves ZERO of its operating overhead ($100 million/year, probably) from the taxpayers - should it close, or should it send bills?

Which is it?

[DB]

"But they don't."

And there lies the problem.

It isn't a choice of "which is it". The whole thing is built on a series of bad choices - all stemming from government mandates/regulation. The only solution with any hope of actually making things better is getting the government out of health care. Not more of the same.

As it always is, the solution to the problems socialism causes is always more socialism... It never occurs to the bureaucrats that their "solution" is the actual source of the problem they're trying to fix.