Quote Originally Posted by Jarvan View Post
Wasn't there a figure that it costs something like 42.7 billion a year to pay for the people that go to the hospital and don't pay their bill? It's supposedly shifted to the people WITH insurance. Well.. here is a shocker. If everyone is insured, those premiums still won't go down, so we will still be paying it.
You're looking at it wrong...of course. It's indisputable that we'd be better off if everyone were insured. Why do you even fight this fight. Less write offs for big corporations, less bankruptcy, better credit in the population, better preventive care. The list goes on and on. You may disagree with ACA but you can't be against each person carrying insurance.

Read this again. Not everyone's saying that this directly affects premiums.

Jack Hadley, senior health services researcher at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., pointed out that uninsured people are charged as much as two-thirds more than what insured people are charged because insurers are able to negotiate prices.
His research has found that privately insured individuals don't end up paying higher premiums to make up for the uninsured because hospitals that serve lower-income families don't have a lot of patients with insurance. He said the government pays about 75% of those unpaid hospital bills either by direct payment or through a disproportionate payment of Medicaid.