Posted On: October 29, 2007, 4:10 pm CDT

Posted By: lastbat

True, people should receive the same care whether they are insured or not - but we all know this isn't the case. We don't have socialized medicine. Nobody can say they get the same care at the county clinic that they do at the private hospital when they pay with insurance. Somebody has to pay the bills and when the hospital doesn't know who is going to pay they tend to give more basic care.

Hospitals routinely give away millions of dollars every year in free care and care they never collect on. As long as they need to pay bills and turn some sort of profit (for whatever reason, even non-profits have to show a profit or they can't grow) they will use the same cost-cutting measures as everyone else to contain the red ink.