That is a fact. Not a reason or goal for this legislation. Hospitals HAVE to treat everybody regardless of insurance. And those costs are passed on in the way of taxes and higher healthcare costs overal.
^^^^^^^^^ All non-debatable facts. This legislation may or may not help taxes but taxes aren't the reason healthcare is as messed up as it is.
That was PART of my response, you ignored the rest. Because you'd rather rely on ignorance than actualy try to have an intelligent debate.
It is you who can't form your own opinion which is why you resort to personal attacks.
I think we are finding out who the real idiot is.
This is what you are referring to with the bolded (
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) before this hospitals used to "dump" patients but not often, this law made that illegal to ever do that and it resulted in the second part you are referring to called a cost shyt (
http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/2010_map4dbb.pdf) (that study gives an estimate of the indirect subsidy you were talking about)
You need to at least provide links to specific facts or help with your figures incase others don't understand or believe you off gp. Reason I say that is because I seen that cost shifting argument of emergency room care by others before, but that wasn't the most significant costs to our health care system as a % of what we spend in private and public dollars in real terms. Things like the price of drugs, surgeries/procedures, hospital stays are significant as well even for the insured to the point where it has nothing to do with that insured person paying a higher price for a medical good or service (from the cost shift), but just the market power of pricing that is charged to us (the insured) by health care providers and pharmaceuticals. Those are significant costs to the insured as well.
Another thing, if the hidden tax of the cost shift that the insured currently pay for the uninsured is ever less than "$95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 for the flat fee or 1.0% of taxable income in 2014,
2.0% of taxable income in 2015, and 2.5% of taxable income in 2016. Beginning after 2016, the penalty will be increased annually by the cost-of-living adjustment" in premiums adjusted for inflation then the law isn't worth it on that point because the penalty is greater than the hidden tax you are referring to. What I mean by that is because the law states insurance firms must by law accept anyone with pre-existing conditions and can't deny them (if the premiums are ever more than the penalty, people will just pay the tax instead of getting coverage because it makes them no difference this is called a perverse incentive). So now you have an issue of those who are just paying the tax but not in the insurance market (which is the whole point of the mandate to pool the healthy/young or those who won't use the insurance to those that will a lot to offset the costs for the firms). If that occurs the insured will pay even more in premiums because they are now subsidizing via higher premium pmts for the ones who do use the health care services since they can't be denied by law. We'd end up with the same problem but only worse.
Even without that, the new requirement on employers will be just as interesting, because as businessmen and economists have stated before it may very well be cheaper to pay the tax as an employer than keep your healthcare plan for current employees or they will limit your choices (instead of bluecross blue shield, atnea, hap, they may only go with one) and now individuals would have to go into the health exchange markets instead. That may not be a bad thing, but if you live in FL, TX, LA, or some states that are refusing to set those up then the point is moot.
You also have the issue of the supreme court invalidating the law to where the medicare funds can't be withheld if the states don't want to expand. Going back to the health exchange thing the states that don't expand medicare (if they don't) now limited the pool of insured even more.
There's a lot to this bill and topic and I really don't feel like breaking it down point by point because people feel too strongly about it one way or the other and I learned the hard way with those emotions you don't have useful discussions. Because when you try to figure things out or question how they work but while doing that it may step on someone's belief systems or to them seems to attack their bias, nothing good comes from it.
Sidenote: This law does nothing to address the high cost medicare beneficiaries already on the rolls and those who will continue to be. Nor does it really improve the labor pool (help add more doctors -they still have to be trained for a certain number of years as well as nurses-plus all the debt they accumulate) and doesn't increase the medical centers. What that means is when/if we get 50+ million into the insurance market or less (it'll be substantially lower for reasons I already stated) the doctors/nurses, hospitals, medical, and pharma drugs are remaining constant or will be less in relative terms with the increase of insured and more usage.
It'd be interesting how it all plays out though
Those that can get preventable check-ups and life saving procedures if/when they get the insurance that they hadn't before is a great thing though, those are marginal benefits to society. Hoping not too much in wait times increase or any form of rationing occurs (because then its not different than now) from this.
point is you're already paying it. 
