Dr. Robert W. Robertson Jr., former director of emergency services at Western Baptist Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky wrote a letter to the LA Times which clearly lays out why we really need reform:
- The uninsured numbers are constantly increasing.
- The unreimbursed expenses incurred by hospitals in treating those ever-increasing numbers of the uninsured are constantly increasing.
- Hospitals must increase their charges in order to cover the ever-increasing costs of treating the uninsured.
- Medical insurance companies must increase the premiums of those they insure in order to pay for the increased hospital charges when their insureds seek treatment.
- Each time insurance premiums increase, another portion of the population opts out of carrying insurance. Individuals or companies reach a point, finally, when they can no longer afford insurance, and individual policyholders or employees of companies which drop their benefits enter into the pool of the uninsured.
- More uninsured people = increased, unreimbursed hospital costs = increased hospital charges = increased insurance premiums = more uninsured people…. The upward spiral is incessant.
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