* Dan Minette ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > What we have now is this: the requirement to give medical care to > people without insurance is soft. If a hospital, for example, > decides to not have an emergency room, they can restrict input fairly > effectively. But, once someone is admitted, no procedure can be > excluded because that patient cannot pay for it.
Absurd, isn't it? Weird how these sorts of things get started and once in motion are hard to change. > A more reasonable way of doing this is to include the cost of > procedures in the mix. Everyone can get basic solid care. But, the > high cost care that pushes the envelope has to be paid for, one way or > another. Hospitals are not required to give it. If combined with some sort of deductible, this makes a lot of sense. Another way of putting it is that patients are responsible for paying the bottom and top of the spectrum of costs, but that a third party (insurance, government, hospital, etc.) takes care of the middle. This wouldn't work by itself since patients living in abject poverty wouldn't even be able to afford the deductible, but a number of different policies are possible to assist with that situation. -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
