Yahoo! News - Uninsured Patients Pay Far More for Care
WASHINGTON - Hospitals routinely charge uninsured people up to four times as much than patients with coverage, financial experts told lawmakers Thursday.

The overbilling largely is caused by hospitals that are trying to recoup the growing costs of indigent care. As a result, people who are financially strapped are subject to aggressive debt collectors.

"We're talking about people who don't have insurance because either they never had it, can't afford it, they've lost it," said Rep. Jim Greenwood, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

"An average working man or woman treated at a hospital can be stuck with a bill that is double what managed care or government programs pay," said Greenwood, R-Pa. "Then, to add insult to injury, they are sometimes aggressively pursued for these inflated debts. This situation is unfair and unjust."

Hospital executives said the cash crunch would best be solved through universal health care coverage for Americans. An estimated 43 million Americans have no health insurance.

It ought to be illegal to charge different rates for the same procedures. Is health care a right, as Mr. Kerry says? If we are smart, we wil make it one. It will be cheaper in the long run to start now, rather than wait for a total collapse.