One lawyer’s experiences show why ObamaCare makes economic sense
In the trenches of the US healthcare system, when an injured person requires immediate medical treatment, they get it. It’s the American way of helping the wounded. When was the last time we saw a hospital turn away a bleeding patient or a person sitting in the ER with a compound fracture? If a hospital did that, we would see outrage on the evening news.
As a personal injury attorney, I know the facts. People without health insurance receive treatment and the hospital completely cancels that treatment. How did this happen? What happens is that a hospital social worker will come into the patient’s room and do a financial review. They will ask you the obvious questions, such as are you married, employed, and have health insurance?
For argument’s sake, let’s say the patient is single, lives alone, and has lost his job in the last year. Guess what, that patient is one of those uninsured Americans. Now, not only are they uninsured, but seriously injured. So what’s the prospect of them footing the bill any time soon? The hospital in some cases, not all cases, will simply write it off as bad debt. Or, they may choose to just put the patient on collections with no real prospect of getting paid and ruin their credit.
Therefore, you are writing off a bad debt. The work is already done. How does the hospital recover the money? The answer is that you charge the next guy more money with the insurance. You have to pass the fixed cost somehow. For example, you couldn’t have a fruit stand and give away some of the fruit to hungry people and not try to increase prices on the remaining inventory. After all, even the owner of the fruit stand has bills to pay.
As a personal injury lawyer, I see that the lack of affordable health care hurts the economy in additional ways. For example, from time to time I get a call from a person who claims to have been injured and wants to sue. So, I listen to what happened and immediately determine that the injuries sustained do not amount to a viable liability claim. When I tell the person that I’m not interested because I don’t see any responsibility, I get the standard response. “All I want is my medical bills paid.” In other words, the person expected to have a lawsuit because he does not have insurance. The person knew or should have known that she had a negligence claim, but she is desperate to pay off her debt.
The problem is confused with the idea that even though the claim is marginal, an attorney might try to seek a settlement due to the injuries. Remember that the client is desperate to pay the medical bills. The attorney is only presenting the client’s argument. The risk for the lawyer is that he could lose and get nothing. However, the cascading effect occurs because when a lawyer gets involved, he costs the insurance company money.
The reality is that most people would never think of suing or filing a claim if they had insurance. The entire motivation behind a lawsuit is not money. The entire motivation is paying medical bills. That’s why the Affordable Care Act will ultimately save billions of dollars and help US citizens get the health care they deserve.
There are legitimate damage claims filed every day. These claimants must be compensated for injuries caused by the wrongful acts of others. The uninsured person interfering with legitimate claims places a significant burden on the economy, the taxpayer, and the legal system. So why not provide affordable healthcare?