"Which forces hospitals to admit a lot of "indigent" patients" are you asking? If you are not asking, then you should. What forces a hospital to accept "indigents"? In contrast with the Ayn Rand philosophy, some people find happiness by really doing their jobs without having a bias toward payment in money, the wealthy or those with insurance. Some hospitals who take care of the "indigents" may be listening to their conscience, other than their pocket. Does it drive costs up? In my opinion No. What drives costs up is the greediness of providers. The more they charge the more they want because greed never gets satisfied.

States want to save money but they don't take in consideration that they do give too many tax breaks to those who do not need it. If they stop that habit they would have the revenue to take care of the so called indigent.

The indigent is in that position not because they want to but because he or she may work it is impossible to pay in one day for the care they need.

And those who can not pay, they receive a bill everymonth and most pay little by little. I think some hospitals get the deduction when they do not need to because the patient may be working and paying every month. I work with the poor and when one of them have needed to go to the hospital she was told that they will take care of her and that she did not have to pay for anything, but it was not true. She received a bill and her credit rating went down when she could not pay anymore. For some people a medical bill can completely change their lives. When they can't pay their credit rating goes down and they have to pay more for everything.

That response was a little incoherent. Too many qualifiers, maybes, etc. I know for a fact that in Texas, hospitals are required by law to treat indigent patients, the charges they can't pay are written off, and doctors are under more and more pressure to see more patients and boost their clinical billings to "support the institution."

Of course some of it is part of the scheme of many institutions to put profits over patients. Its a Repuglican world.

Practice writing haikus.

Texas gets what like 1.40 for every 1.00 they put in? Please Texas is the perfect example of what is wrong with this Union.

So don't move there, Jason. And if you are there, move out of the state if that is your opinion. Pleanty of others, including a lot of illegal immigrants are itching to move there for the opportunities.

You're obviously not one of the 25%. How about them? Should TX just disregard them, or ship them elsewhere.

Why is it I must move for something I do not like, but I have to move for something YOU do not like?

Hey, RV Grandpa. I live in the richest state per capita in the country, Connecticut, though I'm prone to wintering in warmer climes in my retirement. LOL!

Yeah, he said he had 3 reasons why, 1) It is a gov run program, 2) it is an Obama idea, and 3) ..........

Shouldn't you be working for a living right now, Cab Driver? Or are you home drinking today, feeding your alcoholic addiction again?

I wonder if SLC has this thing called Wi-Fi?

Yes, Jason, I've got Wi-Fi and an old iBook I can use while sitting out at the airport when the bar business is slow...

I work mostly on weekends, however; that's where the money is... I do manage some Friday-Sunday shots at Grandpa, however, who has this obsession about my arrested-alcoholism (guilty conscience perhaps, for the treatment failures and malpractice he participated in during his V.A. work--paid for with taxpayer dollars, of course. That's how I first spotted him when he tried to snow us with crap in an area I've got some experience and expertise). I have been drinking right now, but only the usual industrial-strength Folgers...

Grandpa does have me beat in the years department, however. I've only been continuously sober over 30 years, and he's been a headcase all his life.

Whaddya think about getting Danny Devito to play him in the reality series script I'm working on for this site? Otherwise we'll have to vote him off the island...

WOW Wi-Fi all the way out in SLC, gee golly this world sure is a changin.

I think I can say I am not the only one in life who has made mistakes, which is why I really try not to put people down for making them also.

As a bartender I saw plenty of people who can handle the booze and do their thing, but of course a few would fall off the reality cliff and needed attention, point is I couldn't care less what someone does in life, their words on the internet can be taken at face value, meaning just b/c a person is blasted(O'Reily) doesn't make them wrong and if someone is sober that doesn't make them correct.

Cabbie, you are a real good person and if you ever in this area let me know I will buy you a cup of coffee.

More like you've been on a mostly dry drunk for 30 years, broken by frequent "slips", like the one your having right now on beer break when you should be husling your Cabbie ass to do something about your miserable existance, SL C.

And last night, as I do on several occasions, I enjoyed a lovely Chianti with a sausage and peppers and red sauced shells dinner, tossed salad with Italian Dressing, without any consequences as I never have had the problem your weak character has had with alcohol. Life is good!

And for the actor you want to hire to play my part, the singer/actor Kenny Rogers would be a more suitable standin, as I've been known to croon a bit, and have the same Scottish good looks and physical build enhanced by the same style iof beard and sideburns. LOL!

"miserable existance"?

Scottish good looks? Goodness, you've got me ancestors laughing in their graves with that one... Most of them good Highlander stock who know someone like you with an English "noble" or two in their ancestry... One of them doubtless schlepted your great-grandmother while her husband was herding sheep.

Reason #7 We Voted Grandpa Off the Island: "We got tired of hearing him brag about his rambunctious sex life after hearing about his happy family, well, except for the small matter of a divorce."

And Grandpa, I learned I can't handle alcohol a long time ago. You still haven't learned you can't handle the truth.

Thank you for your support, Sir. The real horror is that others come here and he abuses them similarly (and I don't drive over to Teapublican sites and harass them). I'm a big boy, and in the ridicule department he invariably winds up doing a Sarah Palin to my Katie Couric..

He's variously blasted my friend, Chris Matthews, for having diabetes (and Chris is a teetotaler as well), and his attacks on Lawrence are often nearly unprintable. He's also insisted Fox Noise is "mainstream" and he's an "independent" who gets his news "elsewhere," except they always have an uncanny resemblance to right wing talking points. I could go on, but he's already foaming at the mouth by now... Expect him to go after you next, naturally, but I think you can probably take care of yourself as well.

As for fact checking his whoppers, well, that has become a bit of a sport for me. I hope I don't appear too obnoxious.

Following me around on this blog like his understudy Jason is doing is doing good? Ha ha ha! This guy quit on his education, quit on his family, and pretty much quit on himself except for his delusion that he is knowledgeable on things like "global warming" (which he does nothing about in his own life style) and the "gentic" roots of addictive disorders (one of the most foolish pseduo-science theories postulated to provide for cop outs for folks like himself.

After I arrived on this blog in a freindly manner, this fool Cab Driver chimed in after one of my cogent arugments on a posting, with a claim that he would "devote his time to exposing my ignorance with his superior intellect". How's that working for him? When I attempted to provide him with my credentials,especially on matters of Public Finance and Labor Economics, he went all huffy, and degrading in his insults.

So, after enough of that, and after a few other bloggers tried to intervene in his attacks on me, I decided to show the fool or what he is, an economic illiterate with a strong quitters streak and always tenuous sobriety, and a raving bigot as well when it comes to the Mormon faith! My own suspicion is that when he was at his worst battling the bottle, his wife left him for a college graduate Mormon with a good job. I've met his type pleanty, and they need to know who they are, have that mirror held up to them so they get a good look at their image, and only then might they do something about improving their lot in life.

There goes Grandpa with his fetish for building strawmen arguments, dousing them with gasoline, applying a flame source, and claiming he's providing illumination for the unwashed ignorant and misinformed masses.

And degrees in public financing and Labor Econ have what to do with the addiction expertise he was claiming? Which is what he was advertising in the Trayvon Martin case where he showed up here with his racist ad hominem attacks, @!$%# talking nonsense, and unsupported assertions that have validated my preliminary observation he was a full-blown "don't confuse me with the facts" narcissist who would regress to his age 14 if I held the mirror right. Q.E.D.

Lessee... No "genetic root" to addiction? That's not what Nora Volkow will say... Nor will my youngest sister, whose credentials are nearly on par with Dr. Volkow's. I'll leave her anonymous, however, but I've provided the information to others on the Internet regarding her credentials.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/pages/press_releases/12-02-01_addiction_and_the_brain.htm

The current Director of NIDA, Dr Nora Volkow has reviewed the latest findings from Ersche and colleagues, describing alterations in brain regions which may underlie the propensity to become addicted. These findings partly answer the questions posed by Dr Volkow: Does chronic drug abuse cause brain abnormalities, or do they develop before the onset of dependence?

The findings from the Cambridge group show that both answers may be true. Addicted subjects and their siblings showed differences in brain regions associated with impulsivity, i.e. these appear genetically determined.

Nevertheless, in his "King Baby" role, Grandpa has elected to smear me with the claim I must've had a drink sometime in the last three decades, a laughable charge since I haven't. Exhibit A: I'm still breathing. I did spend a lot of time working as a treatment professional, however, which is why I'm comfortable exposing him for the fraud he is. Incidentally, in the late 80's I reviewed the research on the dopaminergic structures involved in addiction that Dr. Volkow has explored in depth, and it was clear to me back then--I've got the grad papers to prove it--that this was the direction treatment would take when it finally "unties" this particular Gordeon knot. Grandpa wouldn't know a neurotransmitter from a nucleotide, seriously.

Grandpa also felted himself with that suggestion I was "dumped by a wife" during my drinking; sorry Fuzzy, no marriage before I sobered up. I did have a Mormon girlfriend briefly as a non-drinking teenager; she left me for a former LDS missionary who told her he'd had a "revelation" they were going to be married. They weren't. If detailing such practices--which apparently are commonplace here--leave me exposed to your silly charge of "bigotry," I'll stand for the consequences since they amount to a lot of irrelevant flatulence and nothing more. I'm also close friends to two successful "Mormon historians," and the funny thing is, faithful Mormons attack them and their inscrutable research exactly the way Fuzzy has attempted to with me.

I'm going to leave it at that since his agenda is simply to attempt to put out another's light because of the dimness of his own. I made no mention of my "superior intellect," although I'll gladly supply SAT scores if the stakes are high enough....

Finally, his self-centered paranoia not withstanding, the evidence is clear I've been here longer than he has; I've passed a probationary period that permits me to "post links," and he can't. His rhetoric is an embarrassment to thinking people everywhere ("RVGrandpa" is hardly the first to note his boorish and delusional behavior), and when he touts his educational credentials, I'm reminded of the fact Ann Coulter graduated from the same university as Keith Olbermann.

I'm the one holding the mirror, Fuzzbrain, only you can't see it because your head is firmly planted up your posterior.

I submit that you "are permitted to post links" as you've proven yourself to be in league with the "prgressives" that this blog and network sooooooooo admire, Cab Driver. Go find another Daily Kos or Huffington Post aritcle to link to.

Or try getting an education completed, and then have the wherewithal to think things through for yourself instead of parotting what others have offered.

Gee golly you mean repubs cannot post a link? Do you supposed that is b/c they have no idea how to OR is that b/c they have not been around long enough?

What I find so funny, is that people like Keith will say, gosh only dems can post here, not repubs. Then someone says well I couldn't post at foxnews, must be b/c I am a dem. Keith then jumps in and says NO, fox would never do that only liberals do that. Fox is fair and balanced says the repub and all others are tying to deceive you, only foxnews is telling us the real truth.

What part of "no one in Texas is denied access to Health Care" didn't you listen to, Paul?

What part of they all go to the emergency room and the rest pay for it didn't you understand?

I am not Gov Perry, but I can tell you what he is thinking with that.

Perry is saying that every emergency room will take you in regardless of insurance or not.

Of course what he leaves out is that the hospitals end up covering the cost and is eventually passed along to us. Then Perry can cry about how the ACA is not working.

Simple gop tactic

There are pleanty of free care clinics in Texas, and a good many of them supported not just by charitable orgainizations, but by the State of Texas. Texas has no need to fat assed officials in Washington, DC messing with their health care systems, usurping the ability of the state and it's peoples to determine how their health care will be provided. "Don't Mess With Texas" is the message here, Jason.

Yet Texas wants to mess with us. Sorry but that is not how it works. Texas gets much more than it puts in, Texas without the Federal Government would be bankrupt, and without the Federal Government Texas would be invaded by the USA and others for the oil.

Just like Montana did when they passed a law, by the people saying corporations cannot buy their pols, that mean old Fed took it on the chin there, and those states rights leaders scalia and his group said the state could do what they want. OHHHHH that is correct I am wrong the Supreme Court said a state MUST follow the Supreme Court, who knew there would be a double standard coming from the gop

The basic tenet of constitutional law underneath Citizens v. United was that Corporations are People under the Constitutional protection of Free Speech.