Why Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured

From an AlterNet article posted last July:

But Shaffer – and millions like her around the country – are actually subsidizing Advocate and other major hospitals, according to a report recently released by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). That's because the approximately 41.2 million Americans who don't have health insurance today not only have to pay astronomically high healthcare bills out of their own pockets, but they actually pay around 50 to 70 percent more than insurance companies do for health coverage.

When an insurance carrier foots a hospital bill, the company "negotiates" a price with the hospital that is usually about half the original billing price. Yet when an individual without insurance is forced to pay for healthcare, they don't have this bargaining power. So they end up paying the "full" rates, making up the slack for the deals the insurance companies have gotten (as well as the uninsured individuals who never pay their bills).

For more, click here.

I am truly amazed when I think about how massive the American health care crisis has become. That so many Americans must live nervous lives without regular access to doctors and medicine, that many more (including myself) must base important life decisions on the availability of health insurance is a moral outrage. The insurance companies are little more than organized crime rackets. The pharmaceutical corporations are worse. Doctors and hospitals find themselves in impossible situations that force them to heavily compromise their commitment to care for the sick. Meanwhile, politicians do nothing--they and their campaign donors all have good health insurance.

The US pays more for health care than any other nation in the world and we get this absurd and immoral situation. What's it going to take to change things? An outbreak of the plague?

For an earlier Real Art post on the sick state of US health care, click here.

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