Actually you can if you go through the process of proving you are financially able to pay for liabilities incurred. I’m not sure of the process (not wealthy) but I believe it involves putting up a bond or some other attestation. In CA at least.
Actually, several states have privatized Medicaid by turning it over to insurance companies.
Is that the “Privatization option” that our new Republican governor was going to do away with until he took office and saw the state budget? 
Wait, what? Medicaid for profit? Or are they simply charged with administering the benefits? More like a contract for services rendered than “turning it over”.
What if a person opts out of the new health insurance, and racks up $200,000 worth of medical care, and only has a net worth of $30,000?
“Because it’s illegal” isn’t really an answer. WHY is it illegal?
And how would somebody opt out of that system?
Don’t go to the doctor, suffer for your principles in brave and stoic silence. I don’t recall any provisions for goon squads to patrol and flush out sick people, drag them away to the hospital,
A non-profit hospital? No, I don’t think so (although a possible exception here and there wouldn’t surprise me)
A for-profit hospital? Yeah, quite likely. I think being “for profit” is incompatible with helping sick people.
Medicaid has been administered by private insurance companies for years. Blue Cross used to have the contract in Florida (twenty years ago). This isn’t new.
The guidelines of Medicaid still apply, and no, it’s not being run for-profit.
It’s kind of like how Medicare is administered by private insurance companies (and IIRC, has been since inception).
But you would still have to pay into such a system, unlike today where you can just not pay for insurance.
He goes bankrupt, but we save his life. The reason being that his life is seen as more important than mere money. However, without insurance, the quality of that life won’t be great - i.e. doctors will try to save it, but the hospital doesn’t need to take any optional or long term steps that they won’t get paid for.
You screw the hospital, but we’ve decided that’s ok if we are saving your life. Its an issue for a lot of hospitals. My sister is an administrator at a small rural hospital that is continually in the red - the other hospitals in the system have to subsidize it. One of the things the ACA is trying to do is keep those small rural hospitals in business by getting more of the locals insured - if you have a farm accident, you don’t want the nearest hospital to be an hour away. (Farm accidents tend to be expensive, and farmers are often uninsured - or at least were)
With a car, you are screwing another individual. Over property. We’ve decided that isn’t ok.
Actually, it is being run for profit.
Many states run Medicaid services through contract provider organizations but recently, several states have been experimenting with using Federal Medicaid payments as insurance premium subsidies, quite different from payments to health providers directly.
Medicare has long been supplemented with Medicare Supplemental (Medigap) insurance but since the 1970s, the government has allowed both non-profit and for-profit insurance companies to administer Medicare services through traditional HMO and PPO plans. This was originally called Medicare+Choice but is now called Medicare Advantage. These plans offer additional benefits and out-of-pocket maximums but unlike traditional Medicare, can limit you to certain provider networks and can require prior authorization for some treatments.
This recent study shows that 31% of enrollees are covered by Medicare Advantage private insurance, up from 13% in 2003. Many of these plans are for-profit but are limited to a loss ratio of 85% - leaving 15% for administrative overhead and profit. They are often paid more for providing services than it would cost the government - in 2009 Medicare Advantage providers were paid 114% of typical costs.
Don’t people who go bankrupt and not pay back the hospital end up costing other people more money as the hospital raises prices in order to recoup the losses?
At least one other poster opines that poor people are better off NOT getting insurance, and just racking up medical bills in the event of an emergency, and then just declaring bankruptcy. Actually, I kind of see this point now. If I’m poor, what is a bankruptcy going to do to me?
Yes, but it isn’t the direct impact that it has on others if you hit my car and total it without insurance.
Oh, and the second part of the problem. If you are in an accident, they need to try and save your life. They don’t, if you are uninsured, need to do anything but stabilize you and put you back on the street. That could create significant long term issues with pain or functionality, but they’ll have met their requirement.
So now you are poor, bankrupt, with possible significant pain and functionality issues.
If you are really poor, the ACA should be covering you with no cost or significant subsidies, if your state took the Medicare expansion. The people getting screwed on this deal are once again, the middle class.
But financial costs don’t matter very much if you’re dead. Looking solely at the monetary costs of insurance, without considering the full range of penalties for not having it, yields a distorted answer.
Further, if you come out of the hospital alive but disabled because you didn’t receive all of the best treatments available, your long-term financial outlook is likely to change remarkably. How is your calculus accounting for the financial costs of an increased risk of long-term disability, reduced earning potential, etc?
You’re citing “the law” as some sort of fiduciary control on a de-centralized business run by billionaires. When was the last time you got a refund? I never got one. Anybody ever get a health insurance refund?
That’s hilarious.
Yep. We got one, along with lots of others.
I’m in MA and Romney care may be more restrictive than Obama care. I’ve gotten refund checks the past few years. A 50 dollar check is nothing compared to what I’m paying but it is nice.
You may scoff, but this restriction was merely regarding benefits payments as a way to curtail heavy marketing and other non-benefit related expenditures. Your original claim was that insurance companies kept the lion’s share of revenues as profits which is laughably false. What would lead you to draw this conclusion in the first place?