Hemmer perpetuates debunked health care myth: "Could people be going to jail for not owning health insurance?"

what's life like in your shotgun shack? that must be where you live because i certainly don't want to pay for your police protection. i mean if you can't learn to defend yourself how is that my problem? and i don't want to pay for your fire service or paramedics. i mean if you can't put out your fire or stop your fix your own injury why should i pay for it? and i certainly hope you walk the dirt paths to work because why should i pay for pavement so a deadbeat like you who can't even build his own roads can get to work?

it's a ruse. it's to trick people into getting abortions on the public tab. you have to be careful about that. you walk in to get your viagra scrip and BOOM- before you know it? you've had an abortion. JUST LIKE THAT. and i bet the magazine selection in the waiting room will STILL suck.

except Highlights

Highlights that's good stuff.

i do- i'm a parplegic. the deal usually is if you have no insurance and no means, they will treat you and then they give you a bill- and it's giant! ow! but then you can go when you feel better and the hospital will try to work it out with you. they will try to get you to pay so much a month or something like that. it's rough for all. there is a ton of shame on say, me...but then everyone at the hospital knows and understands- no one makes enough money to cover those kinds of costs.

most of the doctors i've met fall into two categories- the first is the geeky guy who is all about the tech of medicine and the other type is the guy who wants to fix people.

usually all the people that are involved are really great- it's just the numbers are staggering.

that's what i know.

If people can't pay their bill and they don't have insurance, hospitals are usually reimbursed by the government - state or federal. And guess who pays that bill? The taxpayers of america is who. So this hurts the economy on various levels.

First, cost is lost on the bypassing of prevention. No regular visits to a primary care for someone who has say diabetes has catastrophic consequences that could be entirely avoided if that person had the insurance to seek out primary care.

Second, when that person gets acutely ill to the point of being unable to function usually, they are rushed to the ER where the taxpayers pay the bill which is vast compared to a normal hospital bill b.c emergency physicians are trained to use excess quantities of everything to stabilize a patient regardless of the costs - they are saving lives so they disregard the expense to whoever.

Third, the ER would usually transfer patients to the hospital - the ICU or general medical wards perhaps but the uninsured are sent packing to cut down on the out of pocket expense which is already usually overwhelming. This adds even more to the costs for the taxpayers because the underlying condition is still present and will likely be even more catastrophic on the next ER visit which adds tons more to the taxpayers bill.

The current process is by far the most wasteful, expensive and divorced of all logic process that anyone could possibly come up with. But it is reality. This is why people say the profit motive or an entirely capitalist system does not always equate to promoting the best for society in certain sectors. Healthcare for certain should never have been based upon how much money one has because diseases and chronic conditions are not financially driven.