Sam, I think those are all valid points. But there are some things that must be considered when looking at those raw numbers. The whole story is not there.
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Health services research has consistently documented an insurance disparity in access to and use of medical services.
They:
receive less preventive care,
• are diagnosed at more advanced disease states,
• and once diagnosed, tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates.
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It has been my experience that many people in this group
also fails to seek care until the last minute, over uses care that they know they don't have to pay for, and is often less compliant with their care when they do receive it. I think the reason that they may receive less theraputic care because the hospitals know they are not reimbursed for much of it, so they get just what they need when the hospital has to eat all the costs. The other reason for the disparity is that healthcare is a business. It has been that way for over 20 years. Insurance companies get to cut deals to bring in the numbers (just like the Dems have done with the mandatory insurance issue) and those who end up paying cash don't get the deal and have to pay the higher costs. Those who don't pay and can't pay still will not. One of the biggest failures in this new plan is that very little has been written into the bill which controls what the insurance companies can charge those who are already insured in the matter of deductables and co-pays. The trade off for them in the advantage of dropping the pre-existing condition clauses is that they get the numbers, millions of new payers. You only need to look at the state of Mass and see how their experiment in healthcare reform to see many of the same failures in this new plan. There is absolutely no promise that people are going to go out and get insurance, mandatory or not. That is exactly what happened in Mass. People still waited to the last minute to seek care, they still did not go out and get the mandatory insurance, and the costs were shifted to the state and individually insured to pay the bills. It is breaking their bank.