– Richard J. Little
Yes, uncompensated medical care is a problem but it’s not as big as conventional wisdom leads us to believe. “Big government” may be a villain to the conservative Republicans and the “evil insurance” company may be the object of hatred by liberal Democrats. But the “ER freeloader” is unique in that he is despised by both sides of the Obamacare debate. Liberal democrats constantly attack the “ER freeloader” without mercy and relentlessly cite uncompensated care as justification for the individual mandate. Supposedly, the individual mandate will supposedly use government force to bear to “make the irresponsible freeloaders” pay their own medical bills.
However, what is missing from this narrative is the true cost of uncompensated care. Or more importantly, what is also missing is any information on the true costs of the Obamacare solution.
As it turns out, the data need to answer what the real cost of “ER Freeloading” has been publicly available for quite a while in a document that both sides of the Obamacare debate consider to be an unbiased and accurate source of information on the cost of uncompensated care: the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2008 study on the Uninsured in America (.PDF File).
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The Legend of the “ER Freeloader””