One question for the US posters-who does end up paying the bill when emergency care is done for people who don't have insurance coverage and can't afford the bill? Do hospitals have insurance against this or does the goverment help cover costs? Or does the cost of treating those who don't have coverage get passed on to those who are paying for coverage in the form of higher premiums? Okay, I realise it's more than one question but what it boils down to is trying to figure out how walk-ins to emergency rooms can get treated and who covers it in the long run.
On another note, a good online pal from a midwestern state is now in a chronic-care nursing home down there, quite possibly for the rest of his life. Considering he's in his mid-50's, it's a pretty bleak situation to say the least. As a small-time soybean farmer who has had chronic health problems since his 30's when he developed testicular cancer, he's been stuck with less-than-adequate health care since he and his elderly mother could not afford more than the state subsidised health insurance and finally he totally collapsed and nearly died a few months ago. Now I'm wondering who ends up paying the bill for the years and years of care he may need-he may never walk again and has no family to help look after him so he's stuck in the nursing home. I'm not sure he'd be any better off up here in Canada but I'd like to think he might have had access to see a wider range of specialists than seemed to be available to him down there over the past while, the docs he saw seemed to just hand him pain-killers and point him to the door when he probably should have been referred to a larger center for a much more extensive work-up. Aside from selling off the small farm he has no assets to speak of and once that money is gone, he's penniless and I'm guessing the goverment steps in since there is no family to send bills to other than his mother and she's now in a different nursing home after having a stroke. Even if he did get well enough to leave the home at some point, he'll have nothing left to go to...
