In the midst of an otherwise sensible Washington Post item about the disconnect between real and perceived costs in our health care system, Robert Samuelson gratuitously inserts the observation that the uninsured don’t use emergency rooms any more heavily than do patients with private insurance.
This is a well-worn talking point among advocates of “universal health care,” who usually deploy it to show that the uninsured don’t seek care when they need it, but it actually undermines that case.
The plight of the uninsured supports the argument for universal health care only if it can be shown that this group is effectively excluded from our delivery system and that some sort of federally mandated “solution” is needed to rectify the situation.
However, the Health Affairs study that Samuelson quotes shows that the uninsured are not barred in any meaningful way from medical treatment in this country. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be accessing care as frequently as patients with private insurance
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