[mlguenther]

The author missed a very important reason why hospitals are charging such high fees. In 1986 Reagan passed the "Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act". Since that time, hospitals are required to treat anyone, regardless of whether or not they have insurance, as if they were a fully insured patient. My wife, who is a physician in a busy hospital, consistently sees about 40% of her patients have no health insurance and are receiving free healthcare from that hospital. This may vary based on location, but I cant imagine by much. Hospitals foot the bill in this situation, and that is why costs to the insured are much higher.

Everybody seems to think they are smarter than everyone else when it comes to healthcare reform, but in all of the "smoking gun" articles that are posted, none of them have ever touched on this fact.

Even the new healthcare plan that passed does not address this directly, it assumes that the people who do not have healthcare will use a state healthcare exchange to get their own. I am a little pessimistic about this, and am assuming that only a small percentage of those people will do this.

[dave48]

You should read my epilogue on why hospitals are going bankrupt: http://truecostofhealthcare.org/epilogue Or watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LieVr0QvkME No one is admitted to the hospital these days who doesn't qualify by a rather strict set of criteria. If you qualify and have nothing then, in most States, Medicaid picks up the tab. If you have anything, the hospital gets it.Hospitals give free care the way Heidi Fleiss gave free love.

[rogerbinns]

Atul Gawande covered the issue in this article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_...