The Health Care Crisis - Part 3

Health Care is too expensive.

We hear this all the time. Health care costs too much. Insurance premiums are too high; hospital stays are too expensive; doctors charge too much.

Have you ever wondered why health care costs are so high? 

There are many reasons. There is no one simple answer.

For one thing, we all want the best health care money can buy. We all want the Rolls Royce of health care.  (See part 2).

But here's something the liberals who are pushing nationalized health care don't want you to know. Health care is expensive (in part) because there are too many people in the system who don't pay their bill.

What happens when someone steals something from a store? They have what they call "spoilage." Stores track how much inventory gets stolen, and prices rise accordingly to pay for those losses.

What happens in health care when someone shows up at the emergency room and doesn't pay their bill. Do you think the hospital administrator goes without lunch for a month to make up for it? Do they fire a nurse to cover the loss? No, they have to raise prices to make up for that loss.

Every time a patient shows up at the doctor's office and can't pay the bill, your health care costs (including insurance premiums) go up. Every time someone has a car accident and can't pay for the ambulance ride to the E.R., your health care costs go up. Every time someone has a heart attack and can't pay the cardiologists, your health care costs go up.

Blame it on their lack of insurance, if you want. In most cases, they've chosen to go without health care insurance. (See part 1). So now, when they need insurance and don't have it, they don't worry. Why? Because they know you will foot the bill. 

When did that become moral?

Do you really want to cut health care costs? No, I mean really? 

Really?

Stop footing the bill for freeloaders. Doctors, hospitals and ambulances should turn away anyone who cannot or will not pay for their own health care costs. As soon as that happens, two things will happen. The first is the freeloaders who have chosen to not have health insurance will either find a way to afford coverage, or they will do without.  Either choice is fine by me.  The second is that your health care costs will go down, as will mine.

And that is fine by me, as well.