here's our healthcare system in a nutshell for the uninsured
1) Get into car accident.
2) Ambulance ride ($850)
3) ER care ($2500)
4) Followup visits ($1000)
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Total: $4350 out of pocket
And that's a car accident with minor injuries. If you get cancer, just declare bankruptcy already.
These costs are high because the hospital has to treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, and a whole lot of people don't pay.. not because they're bums, but because no average person can reasonably be expected to come up with 100k+ when they get sick. Healthcare is expensive because no one can afford to pay for it. Except insurance companies.
Enter the insurance company. Your ambulance ride is only $850 because insurance will pay for it. EMTs make 15 bucks an hour. It doesn't cost $850 to spend 10 minutes in an ambulance. It just doesn't. But insurance will pay for it, because the hospital charges it, in part to recoup lost income due to people filing bankruptcy or being uninsured or whatever.
The hospitals would love to charge regular people $100 for that ride, $150 for the ER visit, and $50 for the followup. But they can't. They have to charge the same amount they charge insurance companies. Anything else is insurance fraud, you know?
So the solution is this: Everyone is insured. It's a shitty, half-measure solution. No one is going to get into catastrophic debt, which is great, but a lot of young people will pay way more than they reasonably need.
The better solution is this: Healthcare is subsidized by the government. It comes out of your paycheck, you never have to think about it, and it just happens. We're all human, we're all going to need healthcare, and getting really sick is mostly random chance. It's about as fair as fair can be.
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