Just to give you an idea of how hospital billing works ... (my information is not typical, since we do NOT line item bill for medications, bandaids, and activities, which is common practice in most hospitals ... so if you are getting the $200/dose medicine you pay the same as the guy who is getting the $0.50/dose stuff).

Our "posted" rate (on the front door) is $1000/day. When a patient has insurance a rate is negotiated with the insurance company. This rate is pre-negotiated and contracted for with most of them. We get $300 to 350/day from most insurance providers. If you are getting medically managed detox from one particular provider, we get $450, which is the highest rate of pay for any service we provide.

Yes, we put the "non" in "non-profit."

Last time I went to the ER, on my way out they told me my bill was $720.00.......

Unless I paid it on my way out. Then it would only be $170.00. Go figure.

I recently saw a documentary about a couple who deliberately tried to live on minimum wage jobs. They both got minimum wage jobs and moved into a cheap apartment and lived that way for a month.

The most striking aspect of it for me was when one of them injured themselves and had to make use of the emergency department in a hospital...

Made me damn glad I live in a country with a National Health Service. Two people working every hour they could and spending virtually nothing on themselves and yet medical treatment broke their bank.

Surely the citizens of the wealthiest nation on earth deserve better? I know you all have this thing about not wanting your tax dollars paying for someone else's lives, but do you really see nothing wrong with a working poor who are so disadvantaged as to be unable to afford basic medical treatment?

I know you have some provision ( medicaid?) but y'know it clearly isn't enough to ensure adequate medical treatment to all your citizens.

$350 a day. Wow. How about you just declare me temporarily insane and order me confined here? You can come along as my private nurse to make sure that I don't hurt myself or anyone else. I figure two weeks of therapy should about do it.

What is funny is that nothing he states is correct. You would think that he would get something right. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut.

There is some degree of socialized medicine here. It is predominantly FGBG (For d' Gummint, By d' Gummint) with services provided to government civilian and military personnel as needed.

Government uses healthcare benefits just as civilian corporations do, as an incentive to draw workers. Neither government nor big business (which lobbies government) is willing to give that up, to a universal health care system, at this time.

Compassion for the poor; or, other uninsured hasn't mustered enough popular support here to override government and corporate interests except for when it comes to taking care of our children. In this respect, we are beginning to become civilized. One State, Illinois [Mid-West], has enacted a law that takes effect July 1st of this year. It is reported to be the first of its kind in the US and provides universal health care coverage for children. It's called the "All Kids" program. The linked web page provides a synopsis and additional links for details.

DanaC - saw that too, by the 30 days on McDonalds dude, forgotten his name. Shocked me too. Last time I needed A&E (severely dislocated my shoulder) I spent 5 minutes waiting in a very clean & extremely modern hospital, was treated by a consultant, waited less than 30 seconds in total for X-Rays and was out in under an hour with a shiny new sling. They didn't even want to record my national health number. I have to say that that's about the only thing I'm proud of here recently.

Don't worry - I'm sure someone's working diligently to dismantle it.

See Typical Texas

"Don't worry - I'm sure someone's working diligently to dismantle it."

Hah. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one :P

As long as everyone gets paid, I think it's safe. (I'm assuming that the comment about not needing a health number doesn't mean you skipped your bill)

Not remotely. In fact, your first sentence in this paragraph reduces your second sentence to nonsense.

Helpful of you to give me an idea of what anticapitalist and antihuman lies the economically illiterate Left will try next -- particularly the skewed notion that increasing wealth, rather than organizing scarcity, is "abusive to a majority."

Laissez-faire plus ethics and well secured property rights are the principles that teamed together work, and those who tell you capitalists aren't influenced by ethics are trying to sell you falsity and class resentment -- shoddy goods, and you shouldn't buy them. For longterm success and greatest wealth -- and is there a good capitalist who wouldn't want them? -- fair and ethical dealing is the one road that works every single time. Yeah, jerks have prospered before. You can ask the Enron guys how that turned out.

And these ethics, you just sort of hope that they have them?

No, what I thought I was making clear is that ethics are profitable. Absence of ethics is what cost the Enron guys their fortune -- it is patent that their circumstances are sorely reduced.

The market, HM, reinforces ethics. Kind of an article of faith with us libertarians, but there is reason for having that faith.

Absence of ethics only lost the Enron guys their fortune because some of their unethical behavior was also illegal, and after such a disasterous collapse that illegal behavior couldn't be swept under the rug. What they did was unethical, but if it hadn't also been legislated against (and public enough to cause enough political pressure to overcome Kenny Boy's connections), they'd be sitting pretty on huge piles of looted cash.

The purpose of regulation is to raise the costs of unethical behavior, to help the ethical route remain the most profitable one.