which is paid for by artificially inflating ER costs for folks who do have insurance, like you and I.
I don't have insurance but it hasn't mattered.
However, we have paid huge medical bills - in cash. Total medical of my lady ran over 1/2 million $$, but all that was donated either by the medical professionals themselves and individuals.
I've written about this before. Cash is discounted minimially 50% and often even more - meaning it can cost less than if there was insurance with deductable - and is less if the cost of what insurance would have been. It also is true that in with many specialists and independents, cash "talks" because there is no paperwork, delays, government or insurance challenging or any of that.
We also have far more flexibility in medical decisions when it is not tied to what insurance companies will and won't pay for. Nor does the doctor have to worry about it. It has happened when the doctor is starting to discuss options - then stop and ask if we have insurance because what he is recommending is costly. To our answer of "no, no insurance," the doctors (who don't know us) tend to shift to reduced poor-people alternatives - to our adding "we want what is absolute the best choices to pick from and can afford to pay for it in cash, now." Suddenly, the opinion of the doctor becomes the broadest of all - including the most alternative choices. But I do recognize most people can't do that.
ObamaCare will not eliminate indigent care nor is it universal coverage. It's primary effect will be shifting the tax burden of indigent care from business and residential property taxes to the working middle class.
That is the myth of ObamaCare. It is not indigent care. The poor still will not have insurance like they don't now, increasing numbers of companies are being exempted, increasing numbers of companies say that under the new law they will drop employee insurance and just pay the tax, and many individuals will opt to do the same, including us.
Imposing fines won't make any difference to working people living hand to mouth - like most do. Rather, it is just another way the government will condemn them and try to take more money from them.