There Is Medical Cost Shifting, but Not What You Think
Sierra HancockJohn F. Cogan, R. Glenn Hubbard and Daniel Kessler have it completely wrong on the "cost shifting" of health care from the uninsured to the insured. It is not the insured who pay a price for the uninsured, it is the opposite.
So very true that hospitals will attempt to make up their costs by charging uninsured patients more than those hospitals receive from Medicare and private insurance companies.
One of my and husband Paul Wakfer's experience with this is described in detail in the article I put together back in May 2008 in "Health Care Provision Responsibility and Social Preferencing - A Personal Example"
We continue to be technically uninsured, but in reality self-insured by our practices and our assets.at http://selfsip.org/focus/healthcareexample.html What we did about the charges and why is detailed.