Some more info, Sue -
Some more info, Sue -
There are lots of medical doctors and offices who won't even accept a patient with no medical insurance. Some hospitals too, although they'll list some other reason to send a patient to another facility.
Another problem becomes obvious if you have to go to a local Emergency Room after hours or on the weekend with a serious medical situation that won't wait until normal office hours, and that is the ER rooms (here anyway) are absolutely filled with sick people who obviously have no insurance (poor or homeless or illegal aliens) and wouldn't be able to see a regular doctor because they don't have insurance so they inundate the ER with cold and flu symptoms, and sometimes worse medical issues of course.
There were statistics from the Los Angelos hospitals a few years ago that 70% or more infants born there are to uninsured (frequently illegal alien) persons who also had no prenatal care, no prenatal vitamins, and the newborns are frequently ill and needing much medical care. That's all extremely tragic, of course. But also, the parents, or usually the mother, can't come back and settle her bill in the hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-range because she has no money. The hospitals have to eat that.
It's an exacerbating problem of extreme and mind-boggling proportions. Medical care is a basic necessity of all people.
And you'd think it reasonable that medical offices would give discounted rates for cash patients? It's the opposite. Insurance companies negotiate rates with medical personnel, etc., so after a relatively simple procedure you will see a bill for say $5000 US dollars sent to the insurance company and the insurance company will send communication back saying, "No, our negotiated rate for that procedure with your medical office is $1500 and that's all you can charge our insured." Then, depending on the individual policy the insured purchased, and the yearly deductible, there is an amount the insured must pay. But if they didn't have insurance, in the same situation, the non-insured person would be billed the full $5000!!!
All the policies are different, based on lots of different things, such as perceived needs of the insured. If someone is on a lot of meds, they would want a policy that tends to cover meds. Some policies have co-pays, so each insured pays some amount for each doctor visit. Some policies have various deductible amounts and once that deductible is met in a year, then the insurance will kick in some percentage, maybe 80%, for the next, say $10,000 worth of bills, and then the insurance will usually pick up the rest of the bills. But insurance companies often have a cap now also, saying they'll only pay X-amount out for the lifetime of a patient. So if the person has a terribly chronic and expensive medical situation, they could actually exhaust the insurance benefit with a particular company.
A lot of people work out the bottom line, what amount of money they would be able to come up with in any given year in a worst case scenario medical event, and they factor in the premiums (what we pay for the insurance each month) and the maximum yearly deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, and they base their insurance needs on that.
It's obscenely expensive, no matter how you figure it. That's why there are so many people without medical insurance here.
(edit - The entire process, including mounds of paperwork, has become a huge disheartening burden on doctors also. In addition to that, they have their own extra burden of malpractice insurance costs.)
