What would happen to pending hospital bills if there was free health care?

January 7, 2010 by admin · 3 Comments
Filed under: Law & Ethics 
health care
Ines R asked:

Say you owe a hospital bill, and some day free health care kicks in, would the debt be forfeit?

If so, would there not be potential for abuse for people who can pay the bill? And if not how does this solve poor/uninsured people’s problem if they still have debt they can’t pay?

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Comments

3 Responses to “What would happen to pending hospital bills if there was free health care?”
  1. rachel t says:
    January 10, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    There is NO SUCH THING as free health care. Who pays for that? That’s right, the tax payer. I wouldn’t be able to afford the tax of socialized medicine and you probably wouldn’t either. Terrible idea. Work your @$$ off and get coverage, I do. rachel t

  2. Athena says:
    January 10, 2010 at 6:08 pm

    No matter what type of healthcare system we implement in the United States in the future we will all have to pay our bills for services delivered before the new system goes into effect.

    I hope you understand that there is no such thing as “free health care”.

    Think about the government education system. By any measure, including total cost or cost per student, it is the most expensive on the face of the earth. Yet developing countries where the cost is less than a tenth of ours are producing graduates that put our students, many of whom do not graduate, to shame.

    So what does the government mean when it says “free education”.

    (1) You have to pay for it whether you use it or not.
    (2) Individuals in the government system get no choice as to where to get their education or how the services are delivered.
    (3) The cost will go up year after year a rate that exceeds the rate of inflation.
    (4) The taxpayers will be coerced into approving an ever increasing tax burden to support a failing system because the government officials that run the system can threaten to not deliver services or fire workers if tax increases are not approved.
    (5) The satisfaction of those to whom the service being provided is not even considered.
    (6) Methods for improving quality of services and reducing costs are dismissed as cruel, greedy, and cold hearted.

    The solution for our nation’s problems with healthcare is to reduce the involvement of government and third party payers (insurance companies and employers). Consider cosmetic surgery. In contrast to the rest of the helthcare system costs are going down even as the quality of services and the conveniences offered to consumers increases. And why is this? Because the efficiency of the free market is working. Government does not pay. Except in rare cases insurance companies and employers do not pay either. Instead consumers pay providers directly. This means that consumers are conscious of costs yet are willing to pay for quality services and convenience.

    What about the poor and those that are unable to pay. As government became more involved in healthcare the role of churches and private charities has declined. Generations ago the burden of providing for the poor was absorbed by doctors and hospitals that were willing to provide services for reduced payments, in exchange for labor, or even for free. Churches and charities stepped in to help out even further.

    My grandparents were very poor. Several times during their lives they were in need of healthcare for themselves or their children that they could not afford. There was not a single case in which that care was not provided voluntarily by the community (doctors, hospitals, churches, charities). Since the market was working to keep costs low and quality high and the problem with medical litigation was not out of control this worked well.

    If you doubt the generosity of your fellow Americans, here is something to think about. Although Americans are only 5% of the world’s population we are responsible for 50 to 80 percent of all world giving. Research shows that when taxes are reduced Americans give more.

    We have seen the failed models of socialized heathcare in Europe, Canada, and various countries throughout the world. We have seen that government involvement in healthcare drives up costs and reduces quality in the United States. We have seen that where government and other third party payers are not involved in healthcare delivery such as cosmetic surgery costs go down and quality and convenience go up. We have seen the performance of government delivered education services.

    The free market is not perfect. Yet it is so much better than the “free” services provided by the government. Market forces yield low cost, high quality, convenient services. It allows consumer choice and it is consistent with the American principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility.

    The compassionate solution to our healthcare problems is to remove the government intervention that has caused higher prices, greater complexity, and lower quality.

    =============

    The guy below thinks that “free” healthcare and infant deaths are related. India has “free” healthcare and their infant mortality is several times that of the United States.

    People come to the United States from all over the world to get healthcare. Many are from the UK or Canada where healthcare is “free”. That is to say the UK and Canada will diagnose the disease that is going to kill you and put you on a waiting list where you will die unless you go to the U.S. for care.

    Infant mortality is slightly higher in the United States because of immigrants, mostly from Mexico and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, mothers there do not enjoy proper prenatal care. They come here to the United States to give birth so that their children will be American citizens. A higher percentage of their children die, but the root causes are the conditions in their home country and not those in the United States. Athena

  3. Captain Starkiller says:
    January 11, 2010 at 11:22 pm

    I would suspect as the debt was earned before the system was brought in, they would have to pay.

    For those against universal healthcare, look at the US system. Despite spending more on healthcare per person than any other country in the world, thanks to the US healthcare system, the USA has one of the highest death rates of kids in the industrialsed world.

    Is it right that American children are more likely to die due to the healthcare system than they would if they were born in Canada or a Western European country with universal healthcare? Captain Starkiller

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