Obamanation
Silver Member
- Sep 6, 2012
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By law, a hospital must stabilize a patient with an emergency, regardless of whether he has insurance or not. This means that your taxes are already paying for the uninsured. The only thing that ACA is going to do is to shift the cost of this care from the taxes, to the private sector. There will be some increses in costs, because under the present law, a hospital is not required to give you a heart bypass or chemo treratment, since that is not "stabilization". however, in most cases, the uninsured manage to get this done under Medicaid, or other government programs. If all else fails, they simply write it off, and mark up the cost to your insurance comapny, instead, which simply passes it on to you. So, for the most part, all ACA is doing is "cost shifting", "not cost increasing".
The only thing you are wrong about here is that unisured people without govt' programs will still get bypass surgery. If you show at the ER with chest pain and no coverage you will be sent to the cath lab for a CABG (coronary arterial bypass graft) and spend a week (miniminum) the hospital recovering. Should you contract a pneumonia you will continue to stay in the hospital... You are what we call Private Pay --- and usually the hospital will receive very little, if any, payment for ANY of your bills...
The ACA does NOTHING to address the cost of healthcare in the US. The cost problems have NOTHING to do with the gov't taking over the biggest industry in the Country. That is just socialism -- and it will not fix the cost problem!!!
As I said, ACA is not going to reduce costs, so we agree. A single payer Medicare like universal health care WOULD have reduced costs, and so would the alternative Universal health care through private insureds, like Medicare Advantage.
Even if it would... I would be against it. A legitimate free market is ALWAYS a better solution than gov't run ANYTHING. Look at all the failing gov't programs we have now. Even the ones people like aren't solvent. If you really want to see something screwed up, put the gov't in charge!