General Discussion

Medicaid, should be able to get a special Medicare card that allowed them to pay Medicare prices for health care. They would have to pay the bill but instead of the $10K overpriced hospital bill they couldn't pay, they would be billed the $900 that Medicare would have. Not a final solution, but it would avoid a lot of bankruptcies, allowed hospitals to get something more than lemon from a stone, and keep a lot of people from being in debt forever.

I recently, as a bicyclist, was hit by an SUV. The initial hospital bill for 3 hours in the ER was $17K. Had I no Medicare and little money, even if I were to eventually recover that from the other guy, I would be dunned for months or longer until the other Insurance paid off and would have lost any credit rating, have the additional burden of being a debtor, possibly losing my home, and worse. With Medicare, it pays a reduced price and has first dibs on the settlement to be reimbursed. It was bad enough to be victimized by an idiot driver. It would be worse to be victimized by everyone afterwards to add insult to (painful) injury.