Why do some conservatives seem to favor increasing both health care costs and taxes?
I do not mean this to be a rhetorical question. It seems to me that conservatives who are opposed to allowing Medicare to negotiate, as a whole, for discounted prices on pharmaceuticals is a deliberate attempt to increase the cost of the program. Similarly, the opposition to expanding Medicaid to cover the homeless, or other folks without health insurance is a deliberate attempt to increase health care costs. It is well known that people without insurance tend to wait longer to get care, and when they do get care, it is in the most expensive fashion: the emergency room. Since ERs can not turn anyone away, and they must keep on providing health care until the person is healthy enough to be discharged, we can say that all health care is provided for all people living in this country. What results when people can not pay for health services is called “uncompensated care.” Hospitals get paid for uncompensated care in two ways. First, they charge those who are privately insured more. The in
