Your last sentence is not warranted and has no place on this site. The Medicaid bump only applies to states that enacted it. It is also a recent thing.
People without healthcare insurance often find out they have cancer far too late. While they may find treatment for free often times it is too late. If the free healthcare that hospitals provide was anywhere near adequate then people with insurance would dump it and save money. The fact that people with health insurance aren't dumping it in droves proves that care without it is inadequate.
Old people are costly to care for. They are unprofitable from the insurance industry perspective. Medicare was enacted because the country at the time was civilized enough to not want millions of elderly to do without health insurance. It is not disputable that this benefits the insurance industry.
You can't directly lose your home due to medical bills. You can lose for not being able to afford payments because medical bills for needed healthcare cost too much. There are lots of examples of this. Medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy in the u.s.
It is not known why the U.S. has lower life expectancy but the lower rate is correlated to income and education. I did not say our health outcomes are the worst. I said they are among the worst. In terms of happiness, overall health, life expectancy, etc. we do badly. There are areas where we do well.
Sorry for the last comment, but you're repeating several claims that are untrue and have no basis in fact.
Another example: "Medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy in the u.s.", again, not true. The correct statistic is "Unpaid medical bills are the most common debt owed during bankruptcy filings", someone could have a medical debt of $10 and that doesn't mean it caused their bankruptcy.
"Interestingly, it turns out that research commissioned by the Canadian government shows that 15% of people over the age of 55 who declare bankruptcy cite a medical problem as the primary reason. Medical bankruptcies can, as I've been saying for a while, be driven by something other than the lack of free government provided medical care."[1]
Instead of reading Megan read the report she cites. The Canada number is self reported by those surveyed and it isn't known if this is from the bills themselves or from loss of income due to illness or a combination of both. If it is from medical bills this would be for care above and beyond what the Medicare system provides. I don't know exactly what Medicare refers to when talking about Canada. I'm quoting the paper that Megan cited. interestingly the paper cites work by Warren and Megan is quite critical of her work in the article you linked too. I've found Megan to be unreliable when interpreting studies.
The fact remains that people in the US do go bankrupt as a result of medical bills. People in Germany, France, etc. don't. As a general matter of affairs. We spend far more per capita than anyone else on care. We don't live longer, aren't more happy, or in better health than people in other countries. Our health outcomes are worse than many industrialized nations. The free care that hospitals provide is not adequate care evidenced by the market.
I certainly won't argue with you about the impact of direct medical costs on Americans. My comment is that statistics are often misleading and you can't draw broad conclusions from a single number.
People without healthcare insurance often find out they have cancer far too late. While they may find treatment for free often times it is too late. If the free healthcare that hospitals provide was anywhere near adequate then people with insurance would dump it and save money. The fact that people with health insurance aren't dumping it in droves proves that care without it is inadequate.
Old people are costly to care for. They are unprofitable from the insurance industry perspective. Medicare was enacted because the country at the time was civilized enough to not want millions of elderly to do without health insurance. It is not disputable that this benefits the insurance industry.
You can't directly lose your home due to medical bills. You can lose for not being able to afford payments because medical bills for needed healthcare cost too much. There are lots of examples of this. Medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy in the u.s.
It is not known why the U.S. has lower life expectancy but the lower rate is correlated to income and education. I did not say our health outcomes are the worst. I said they are among the worst. In terms of happiness, overall health, life expectancy, etc. we do badly. There are areas where we do well.