David Skaggs: “yes, we should be worried about a hidden cost as we debate health care reform. But it is not the one that some are…”

“yes, we should be worried about a hidden cost as we debate health care reform. But it is not the one that some are talking about today. It is not an esoteric question about whether something is off or on budget. It is something much more fundamental. The hidden cost we should be most worried about is how our current health care system leads to all of us paying more than we need to. There is a hidden cost to all of us whenever somebody without health insurance neglects an illness until it is acute. Whenever a disease that could have been treated with a $50 doctor visit and a $20 prescription becomes a week-long hospital stay. Whenever somebody who does not have a regular doctor gets treated in an emergency room instead of in a doctor's office. Whenever somebody without insurance cannot pay his or her hospital bill. Because that cost is paid by the rest of us. That is one of the reasons an aspirin in a hospital costs more than a movie ticket. There is a hidden cost when we spend over $100 billion each year to process 15,000 different types of insurance forms and to deal with the other requirements of an insurance system that is far too complex and too bureaucratic. Because every time any of us pays an insurance premium or a health care bill we're paying for that hidden $100 billion. There is a hidden cost added to the sticker price of every American car to buy health insurance for auto industry retirees.”