In an effort to provide his blue collar workers with a decent benefits package, he setup a health insurance plan. After 6 months or so, his HR person came back and said "none of the employees have used the insurance at all!" This was weird since these workers had families and obviously children get sick on a regular basis.
He spoke to his employees and asked why they weren't using their insurance. The answer? Instead of having to pay a $20 co-pay to see a doctor, they could just go to the hospital and say they were uninsured. If they did that, they didn't pay a dime for their healthcare.
I'm amazed at the ways the U.S. healthcare system is so much worse than most of the rest of the world's.
I guess there are humungous lobbying efforts and entrenched interests to make it stay the way it is.
The caveat being, it also has some of the most advanced medical technology and procedures too, but the day-to-day healthcare is surely the worst.
How it works here in Uruguay:
There are three levels of care
1) Universal (public) healthcare, you just show at the door and you're admitted. The quality is poor (although doctors are mostly good), and some hospital conditions are close to appalling, but it's 100% free (paid by taxpayers blablah), even up to cancer or AIDS treatment (yes, thousands of dollars). Time to treatment is also very bad for surgeries and other conditions.
2) Almost-universal healthcare in a co-op mode (Mutualism, "Mutualistas" and FONASA). Anybody who works or draws a pension has the right to one of those for himself and his children. Quality is decent, and there are some small costs associated (U$ 5 per doctor visit, and a few hundred dollars for major events). Medicine is provided by the hospital at an extreme discount (usually U$ 5 for any medicine, including the ones costing hundreds of dollars. Generics are mandatory whenever possible). The thing is, it's becoming a bit overcrowded and quality is going down, government is over-regulating IMO.
3) Private insurance, US-style. This one can replace 2) although 1) is still free to everybody (double coverage). That one gives access to the very best hospitals, doctors, etc... but it's the most expensive by far, and usually doesn't cover medicines outside of hospital stay.
Otherwise, please tell me which hospital is giving away free service to the uninsured.
When asked about billing they simply said "I don't have insurance". Many hospitals, including the DSH (disproportionate share hospitals) write these things off all the time. The hospital just doesn't bother following up. Are you going to spend $200 to chase down a $100 hospital bill?
