Since Shaggy mentioned working in a hospital while blaming Obamacare for the ills of the world, my wife also worked out of a hospital system for 15 years, beginning in '99. Medical providers and hospitals have always whined about losing money, mostly while they are explaining why they couldn't afford wage increases, and even while in the process of massive, luxurious, expansion projects. Having said that, the increase in their present-day complaining began about 2002. This had nothing to do with Obamacare; it was, and is, due to the huge insurance corporations that negotiate rates with the providers. Notice I didn't say that they fixe those rates, but they negotiate them with the provider. Much like unions use their collective numbers to negotiate a better contract, insurance companies use collective bargaining to gain bargaining power, so providers cannot so readily overcharge. The question to ask is, if hospitals and doctors are losing money year after year, why are they still in business? And when it comes to cutting staff, they do it for the same reason all blood-sucking corporations do, to maximize profits. That's the same reason they schedule unnecessary procedures and surgeries, even when patient safety is put at risk.
The problem is not UHC, it is the way we have blended it with our old for-profit corporate insurance system. Whenever health and human services are privatized the profit-motive comes into conflict with providing services, and the services suffer in order to increase profits. We should remove private insurance companies from the equation. Actually profit-driven hospitals are just as, if not more, dangerous. Instead of denying services, they push unnecessary, dangerous and expensive procedures for profit.
