[quote]tedro wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
So let me see if understand…You would have a hospital keep a non-paying patient? At 1 or 2 thousand bucks per day?
No, patients that are cognizant enough to decide for themselves if they want to continue treatment will have the choice to stay until a doctor releases them or leave immediately. If they choose to leave, they will be required to pay for the services at that point or identify themselves to the point that a hospital can send a bill and/or set up a payment plan. If they fail to do this the hospital will have the right to detain them, in the same manner that a shop keeper can detain a customer in the case of theft.
I have personal experience with uninsured–and undocumented aliens–who have been hospitalized in acute care hospitals because they cannot be moved.
Guess who pays the bills.
People don’t go to jail for not paying their hospital bills. In bankruptcy, lawyers and accountants are paid before hospitals and doctors, so you can see how that works out. No creditors win in bankruptcy.
For the sake of this argument, I am going to ignore the issue of illegal immigrants. Their strain on the health care system can be fixed through mechanisms independant of health care. If we want to consider them in this case, we must get to the root of the cause. If we would allow ourselves to do this, the cost of health care for illegals is moot.
I realize people don’t go to jail for not paying their bills. I also realize bankruptcy won’t recoup the cost of treatment. The idea here isn’t to make hospitals 100% efficient. It is to allow a hospital to operate just like any other business with minimal government involvement. If a patient steals services, they need to be punished to the full extent of the law. If they take services that they are unable to pay for they should be fully prepared to face the consequences to their credit.
It is also important to note that when illegals are excluded from this group, the group becomes amazingly small. We are simply talking about those that choose to not carry insurance that also have no other way of paying for a catastrophe.
The Amish do not rely on technology; home remedies serve them, and when they must go to the “English” for medical care, they have a community fund–insurance–for that purpose.
Precisely. Just like some have a bank account–insurance–or a rich uncle–insurance–or possibly other services to barter for that purpose.
But catastrophes still visit the righteous; the Amish are not immune:
[i]Mr. Martin and other Old Order Mennonites say they don’t want charity. But they want bills that reflect the actual cost of care. The government allows hospitals to charge many times the actual cost of services in order to pay for updates to technology and services.
“I want to pay my bills,” Mr. Martin says. “I just want to pay bills that are reasonable and fair.”
John Burkholder, a Mennonite farmer, was billed almost $11,400 for his two-year-old son’s single day at Lancaster General in 2005 – mostly because of a nearly $10,000 charge for an injection of a medicine to fight a respiratory virus.
After Dr. Morton talked to hospital officials, the hospital cut the injection bill by about half. He says hospitals often charge many times the actual cost of medicine.
A spokesman for Lancaster General said the hospital lowered the price of the injection for Mr. Burkholder’s son to $5,500 in response to Dr. Morton’s inquiry – and has since reduced the charges for many other expensive drugs.
All this comes as many nonprofit hospitals in the U.S. are making money. Nonprofit hospitals are exempt from taxes in exchange for providing benefits to their communities. Income they generate is supposed to be channeled back into operations.
In fiscal 2007, Hershey Medical Center had a profit of $59.3 million; Lancaster General had a profit of $137 million.
Asked whether that surplus could be put toward discounting rates for the uninsured, Mr. Beeman, the CEO, said it is better to use the money to improve services at the hospital for everyone.
Lancaster General spent $350 million on capital projects – including an 11-level garage, expanded executive offices and a lobby with marble floors and a grand piano – between 2003 and 2007. The hospital paid Mr. Beeman $1.28 million last year.[/i]
Sounds to me like Mr. Martin picked the wrong non-profit hospital to go to. Part of health care reform is to get the customer back into the process of deciding what hospital to go to and what insurance policies to purchase. Between group health, government programs, and over-regulation of the insurance industry this no longer happens. True reform will treat hospitals and insurance companies just like any other business where the customer actually has an incentive to shop around and research the product they are purchasing.[/quote]
Yep…thought you would like it.