Now, let's be clear - that's due to a number of specific factors in your scenario - you note that you were in the "hospital" - ED treatment is automatically more expensive than being seen in say, an outpatient urgent care.

The CT alone will run in the tens of thousands. Many free market insurance companies will not pay for CTs as they are cost too much.

Now - let's say you have no coverage, no insurance and you have absolutely no money. You don't own a home or a car, you have zero in the bank, you are truly destitute - in those cases, after negotiating with a financial counciler, you might pay little or nothing (usually you will be encouraged to get on a payment plan), but that cost is then written off as charity, yet passed on to the governement for reimbursement. You can see why it would benefit us to get a plan established to make this practice needless.

Now, let's say you have insurance - usually through your work, where you and your employer both pay into it each month, to the tune of a few hundred dollars. If you were to walk into the ED, depending on your plan, you'd pay, on the average, about $50 for an ED Visit. Some plans less, some more. That would cover the basics of the visit, like the painkillers given, the initial dose of antibiotics, the blood and urine work, though the CT might be out of the question based on your insurance. Likewise, different insurances pay for different drugs, so you might not get antibiotics, or if you do, you might get the generic version, or a lesser version.

But let's say your employer doesn't offer health care, or you're self-employed or not employed, and you want health care insurance.

The Health Care Insurance companies are kind enough to offer options - you can pay less of a premium in exchange for a plan with higher co-pays or no prescriptions covered, or a sliding scale of deductables needed to be met before insurance kicks in (usually in the area of $1 to $2 thousand dollars), but that is if you can qualify for insurance.

Let that one sink in - remember, in our free market economy, when it comes to health care insurance, the most important thing to the health care insurers is the bottom line, and if you have any sort of risks that will effect that bottom line - if you're old, or sickly or need meds or frequent office visits? You're not going to be good for the bottom line, so you will either be flat-out denied coverage, or you will pay a much higher premium - a diabetic, if they're lucky enough to be covered, might be expected to pay thousands a month just for that honor. (And that's your monthly payment - then you have to pay to see the doc, pay for labs, pay for meds, etc and so on...)

You'll note that I used the example of the ED; what if you went to Outpatient Urgent Care? The initial co-pay might be less - anywhere from $5 to $50 bucks in most cases, depending on your plan, but meds and labs would not be covered - you'd pay another co-pay at the lab to get the blood drawn, and you'd pay whatever your plan dictates for your prescription meds.

Let's take it to another example - a few years ago I had a massive mrsa infection - I was hospitalized, had a pic line put in, antibiotics administered, operated on to get out parts of the infection. With health insurance, the bill for the hospital stay - my "co-pay", was just over $10,000.

Someone gave a similar example in this thread about that - they said "fair enough, my life is worth that" and moved on with things.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is - wait one god damn second. Haven't I been paying into an insurance fund just so I'm not stuck with a $10k bill when I leave the hospital? What the F? Sure, my life is worth it, but is my credit?

I put the whole bill on a number of credit cards - I now am paying down a debt - which leads to another thought: We hear a lot about "personal responsibility" and namely, the lack thereof here in America - people getting in over their heads in home debt and credit card debt, and we sniff and smugly and self-rightiously say that it's their own fault for buying things they didn't need.

Now, let me be clear - I am ahead on my hospital debt - I make large payments each month and am not behind or in over my head - but speaking as someone who has sizeable debt that's thanks to a hospital stay? To all those "personal responsiblity" people out there? Try walking a mile in someone else's shoes before you judge them.

The bill does say that you have to be insured, (or else pay a fee on your income tax) - which is to balance out the need to have the government pay for all the Emergency room trips that they're currently paying for.

HOWEVER, that's one part of the bill - the rest of the bill includes measures to make access to insurance more affordable and avaliable, and for those that fall within certain financial bounds, they will have access to "free" as you say, insurance.

The bill isn't the socialist dream that many of us were hoping for but here's what it does - it levels out the playing field, making insurance avaliable for all of us at rates that we can afford - and then puts the onus on us to be insured since if we are not, the government ends up paying for it anyway when we show up in the emergency room (or if we do end up paying, when we declare bankruptcy, etc and so on...).

I've worked for two health care organizations - the first one charged me $5 to go to the ED and my current one charges me $50. I'll have to consider joining Kevin's group - on one hand, higher co-pays. On the other hand, I'd work with Kevin, so...

Which is why the insurance companies are fighting it so furiously.
You'd think that they'd be all about this bill but fact of the matter is
that the bill is going to regulate the hell out of health insurance.

And good, says this guy!

Free market is awesome, but when human life is pitted against the
"bottom line" it's no longer a matter of theoretical free market
exercize is it?