President Obama was on all the irrelevant TV network Sunday shows on September 20th.. One of the shows he was on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos". George asked him if the mandate for all Americans to purchase health insurance was a tax. Obama said that caring for uninsured people costs every family $900 more in premiums. That is obfuscation at best. In less than 15 minutes of research, I was able to dispel that myth. As usual I could not rely on the media to fact-check Obama's claims.
The actual cost of uncompensated care is 6% of total hospital revenue. Uncompensated care is defined as charity care, which is care for patients the hospital knows in advance will not be able to pay , combined with uncollectable bad debts. This 6% figure has remained relatively constant for 30 years.
Under compensated care, which is the amount billed but not reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid, etc., has been increasing steadily and has resulted in 15% cost shift to commercial payers. This has resulted in a 10.6% increase in commercial health insurance premiums. The end result is that employers have had to pay $1,115 more and the individual has had to pay $297 more.
In summary, it isn't the uninsured that is causing the rising cost in insurance premiums. It is the Government's inability to pay for what it has already promised the citizens. Isn't that reason enough to defeat any Government health care proposal?
