“Unpaid Hospital Bills Rise To $41 Billion Annually”. That is the headline for the linked article. The last sentence is food for thought: “But more federal spending cuts only will harm access to care and shift costs to state and local governments and taxpayers.” The article is from Forbes, hardly a radical organization. I think that the message is relatively clear: even so-called ‘charity’ hospitals require infusions of taxpayer money when donations and other forms of raised capital don’t cover their costs. The bills will be paid. Over the past few days I’ve heard pundit after pundit in interview after interview blaming this, that, him, her, ‘it’… everything except what I think may (sadly) be the base problem concerning health care overall. Quite some time ago people in The US decided that everyone who goes to an ER will be treated regardless of their ability to pay the bill. From what I have been told it seems that in many (if not most) cases it would cost a hospital more to sue an individual for what is owed than it is to ‘eat’ the expense. Of course the expense doesn’t actually go away. Fund Raisers, private Grants, and the like take up some of the slack. However, if the till is still short at the end of the day Taxpayers pick it up. There are some people who would like to see this end… for us to go back to what they perceive was a simpler way of doing things. That, they say, will bring the cost of health care down. I’m not sure. OK… I’m not an expert, but while growing up I remember that a doctor could fit a good portion of his tools-of-trade into a black satchel. Nowadays he’d need at least an over-sized SUV. Is that bad? I don’t think so. Modern medicine is able to keep people alive in a way that would have the heads of doctors from the ‘50s spinning (check out Dr. Steven Hawkins). However, all of this comes at a price. The ACA is not perfect… but it is a start – something people have been afraid to do for too many decades. Is it long (900+ pages)? Yes… but the CC&Rs which govern my neighborhood make quite a handful, too. I’ve seen CC&Rs that are nearly an inch thick. Now, if it takes that much legal detail to let people know it’s a bad economic move to paint their house Electric Lime Green with Purple Haze accents is it any surprise to know that it takes a few more pages to address health care issues? So, I think that “It’s too long” is a bogus reason for saying that it is bad. So, when it comes to The ACA my feeling is that let’s move forward. There will be difficulties. There will be trips-n-slips. These are going to be more complex than would-have-been but we’ve been marking-time on this issue for so long that trying to play catch-up is not going to be easy no matter ‘whose’ legislation it is.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 04:05:27 +0000
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