Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat people with emergencies, but it is not free. All hospitals have banks of lawyers on retainer and they immediately come after you, your family, your bank account, your credit standing, etc. for non-payment. As to free health clinics, many many areas outside of large urban centers do not have them. As to Medicare, if you go to www.medicare.gov you will see that "Medicare is health insurance for people age 65 or older, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and any age with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant)." So to think that Medicare provides blanket coverage for the majority of Americans is a myth.
I never said Medicare provides blanket coverage. I actually meant to say Medicaid. And yes, you are correct that there are few free health clinics outside major urban areas. But most of the uninsured is centered around urban areas. And I have never heard of anyone that had a hospital come after them for free emergency room care unless you abuse the privilege. For example, there are people who made weekly visits to emergency rooms for the common cold and headaches. This is not what the emergency care is for. I never said medicaid, free health clinics, or emergency room care was the fix to every problem but it does solve about 80% of the cases for the uninsured. The problem is not that though, it's that those programs themselves come at a great cost to the taxpayer and this is not even remotely close to a socialized system. All socialized medicine would do in this country is reduce the quality of care in this country to that of Uganda. Sure it would be free, but do you really want free, low quality care? I think as Americans we always want to get the best value for anything we buy, EXCEPT health care. That is the one thing we don't bargain shop for nor should we. The bottom line is we have the best doctors, best hospitals, best medical equipment in the world. Having the best means its exorbitantly expensive. There are ways we can lower health insurance costs but democrats want no part of tort reform. Trial lawyers are a very powerful lobby. I think Republicans offered a plan a few years back that offered a 15k tax credit for heath insurance that would have basically given free health care to every man, woman and child in this country plus money back as a bonus for the difference. Did this get passed? Of course not. It made too much sense. And it would not have brought socialized medicine here which pissed off the left.
Good points Mav. And I'm not advocating socialized medical care. Just pointing out that we do indeed have a serious problem in this country and a huge number of honest, tax-paying citizens do not have the means or coverage for health issues in their families. BTW, because emergency rooms provide care before you pay for it doesn't make it free. Similarly, when a restaurant puts food on your table even though you don't pay up right then that doesn't mean the food is free. The hospitals have much deeper pockets and much better lawyers than your local steakhouse. And I know of a number of people who have had hospitals come after them for delayed or non-payment of what you are calling "free" services.
Ahhhh, but what of those that go in for healthcare and give a fake id or claim to not have an id on them and give a made up name? THAT is free healthcare..
They can try to collect by sending it to collections. Doesn't mean they will be able to. If you are broke and poor or an illegal immigrant, you won't pay. If you have money, you can decide to not pay and see what happens. Withdraw all your money from the bank and say you lost it gambling. I think for them to be able to seize your assets, they would have to take you to court and win and even then I'm not sure if they can seize your assets or garnish your wages for medical bills; perhaps someone else knows or has experienced this in the past?