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Originally Posted by filtherton
I think that it is worthwhile to make healthcare cheap and accessible, not because healthcare is a right, but because it is better than the alternative. I think that society is better off, both financially and otherwise, when it isn't in someone's financial best interest to wait until a condition requires emergency care to do something about it, even if that person isn't presently living up their potential as a cog in the market.
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That's a good point.
I'd also like to frame the emergency services thing in a different way... See, we already have universal healthcare - it's just the most inefficient and shitty system devisable, and it harms the health of our nation while it drives the cost of care up for everyone.
Cynthetiq - you and I went around about this in the Sicko thread, and I don't think much has changed about either viewpoint. However, I do want to point out that it's naive at best to think that every uninsured guy who comes in the door with a severed finger pays his bill at all, let alone in cash. The uninsured people who are transported to the hospital by medivac and require emergency surgery to even survive the night don't all pay their $100,000 bills. The diabetic who doesn't take care of their condition (because they can't afford preventative checkups and insulin) and requires the amputation of an ulcerous and gangrenous foot to avoid death from sepsis may not pay their $60,000 bill. So who does? You do, in the form of higher hospital service charges and increased insurance rates. There's no real alternative to this. So I move that we accept the fact that by opening the door to emergency services we've already created a national healthcare system which is inefficient and shitty. The question is whether we'll improve it or stand our ground on ideological concerns which are moot.