The latest in gov't mangling of our rights

[kraegar]

It all comes down to the bottom line, as was said above. I work at a hospital, it's a small, community hospital. Not in an even moderately sized city. We give $30m a year in "free" care away to the uninsured. The majority of it in ER visits for car accidents, etc that result in MRI's, blood tests, xrays, emergency surgery, huge amounts of medications, and lengthy hospital stays.

The only way to make that up is to jack up the price for everyone else that actually has insurance.

So the gov't plan is to make the pool its maximum size, so everyone is covered, and spread the costs out. Can't say if it'll work yet, the current plan is too undefined (last time I read it, anyway) on caps for different services.

Why is everyone required to have coverage under it, though? Because if not, those who don't continue to screw the system every time they get into a car accident, etc. (Unless we could say "No insurance? You only get the amount of care you have cash in your pockets to afford")

Can't really compare to england or Canada, either. In those countries the hospitals themselves are owned by the gov't, and I don't see that happening here.