Surprise! You're soaking in it!

I was recently watching a special on the "Healthcare Nightmare" on the Faux Network, and was very entertained by the usual fear mongering by Hannity and the bunch. During their rants, they suggested that the cost of universal health care would be astronomically more than it is now.

I differ, as we already have universal health care, and we are already paying for it, and in the most expensive way possible.

When I was in the hospital earlier this year for surgery--a stay paid for by my work-sponsored insurance program--I had a number of roomies in my semi-private digs. One was on Medicare, and was having gall bladder surgery. Two others were in for emergency kidney stone surgery. Of those two, one was a citizen uninsured in his job, the other was an illegal immigrant, also uninsured in their job. All of us received the same treatment--top notch, with room service feeding (which I could only avail myself of sparingly), nurses and aides to wait on our needs.

The uninsured patients were not treated shabbily, the nurses and room service came just as speedily for them as they did for me. They did not want for attention, nor were pain meds refused to them. Doctors saw them expeditiously.

In the case of the two uninsured gentlemen, I would bet that the care and the bills were totally uncompensated, indigent care. This indigent care is paid for by billing paying customers, such as myself, astronomically higher bills to make up for the lost money. Other customers, especially those that self-insure, or pay their own bills, are billed even more outrageously for their care to cover those indigent costs.

So, since money to cover the indigent is taken from those that have--the insured and the self-paying--and used to cover those that have not, do we not have a de-facto socialized health care system?

I would argue that is most assuredly the case. And since the burden of caring for the indigent falls mainly on emergency rooms (the only medical facilities that are unable to turn them away--at least until their condition is stabilized), they are being cared for in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.

I will grant that there are free clinics about (and God Bless those that run and staff them) and other programs to help the indigent, but way too many people simply wait until they are sick to the point of death to get care. When they do, it's the ER that gets them.

I would like to see us get past the point of squabbling about whether or not we are going to have a universal, socialized health care system, and move on to how we are going to pay for it and administer it efficiently and fairly. There is no point in arguing about whether or not it exists, it's there, and as long as emergency facilities have to stabilize patients without asking about means to pay, it will continue to soak the rest of us.