ubertuber

The point being, you don't have to pay, and you can get procedures without authorization from your insurance company. Hell, many "patients" in emergency departments give false names and addresses. Again, they can do this because they won't be turned away until their conditions are stabilized.

Your motorcycle accident was traumatic for you, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of how expensive hospital stays and emergency treatment can be. What if you tripped on your shoelaces, fell and hit your head resulting in a subdural hematoma, requiring brain surgery?

What I'm getting at here is that "opting out of the system" is a state of mind. In no way does this "choice" mean that you don't take part in the medical care system. The only difference between them is whether you choose to pay, if you are able...

As I said in my last, overly long, post, the problem isn't uninsured people as much as it is the effect that managed care organizations have on the entire system - driving costs up for all users, insured and uninsured.

Also, regarding your admiration for Hatzalah... They are not able to provide the most advanced portable care options the way the hospital crews and FDNY do. They're not always speedier - that depends on your neighborhood and the "flow" in the city's EMS system that night. Lastly, and most importantly, regardless of what your quoted passage says, Hatzalah can and does refuse care and transport to people based on their medical conditions. I have personal experience with this from my days managing college Residence Halls. I'm talking about conditions that were serious enough that attending physicians in the hospitals would ADMIT the students in question for multi-day treatment. These students were effectively discriminated against by people with vastly inferior medical training. That's not a system I would want to have to rely on.

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