Quote:
Originally Posted by baddog
You make it free for everyone, the people without a family doctor are going to clog the hospitals to well beyond capacity for the sniffles when the people who are actually sick wait to die. It's definitely a fucked up system. I'd LOVE the option to pay for premium care!
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That already happens every single day in America. The ER has become the place to go for the common cold. Why? Because no family doctor will see you without pre-pay. Hospitals have to.
Then, when the hospital doesn't get paid, the state and feds step in and subsidize things for them.
Why not just let people go to the family doctor and pay $55-70 to treat the cold rather than $1,300, which always seems to include a CT scan.
Taxpayers are currently paying either way. They pay higher premiums for their private insurance because the hospitals and the doctors that staff them have to jack their rates for un-reimbursed services and/or the state/federal government chips money in to make sure the hospitals don't go broke.
Why not just have the government take over and remove the for-profit motive that insurance companies have; thereby eliminating yet another layer or money?
If you look at it purely from a financial perspective, it should save money over time. Look at how low the administrative cost is for Medicare compared to private insurance. That says leaps and bounds in and of itself.