Michigan Liberal::: Meanwhile, health care is still broken

by Eric B.

“We have 12 million people who cannot afford health insurance,” (Heartland Institute Director of Government Relations Peter) Fotos said, explaining that the other 34 million uninsured people either make enough money to purchase insurance or are eligible for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program and choose not to participate in those public programs.

Emphasis mine. You have to know next to nothing about the health care industry to say this kind of thing with a straight face. There is, of course, the morality angle ... suggesting that access to the emergency room is health care in the same way that having access to preventative care is health care.  It's like saying that you are maintaining your car properly because you got the engine rebuilt after it ran out of oil and threw a rod, except that if you wait around to visit the emergency room rather than using Lipitor, the stakes are somewhat higher.

The profoundly stupid thing here, however, is a free market advocate talking about the emergency room while advocating ways to fix health care. One of the things that drives up the costs of health care is when uninsured people stagger into the E.R. clutching their chests. Not only is this person a lot more expensive to treat than if you'd lowered his blood pressure to begin with, the odds of him paying that bill are somewhat diminished. What winds up happening is that the hospital has to balance its budget and pushes the costs of getting stiffed in the E.R. off to everyone else.  In short, what this guy is calling access to health care is part of the problem.

Source: U.S. Census

That leaves 12 million without insurance. These people are not eligible for government programs because they have incomes or assets above the Medicaid caps. Its a serious problem, and obviously we have some serious disagreements about how to solve it.

...

Read more...