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Comment by limeblack | Hacker News Reader

My father is an executive at a major hospital and this is only part of it. There is also issues of brands forming monopolies when appearing in communities. Mergers are also incredibly complex. Also lots (but not all hospitals) are nonprofits which complicates it further. ERs are required to treat patients if they come in which means some are making tons of money while some not at all. One person can significantly alter ERs profits[0].

[0] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/the-12m-patien...

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Is very insightful to read those comments. So many people who, faced with socialized medicine, screamed "DEATH PANELS!"...

See premiums rising and all of a sudden, "We need to consider letting this person die a noble death."

It's like a paradigm shifting, without a clutch.

however this issue like the costs of health care are exaggerated by local and federal government rules. when you prevent competition, when you force coverage regardless of need, and you lock out more options, costs only go one direction.

just like tax laws, medical laws and implementation are done to favor specific groups to the detriment of others unfortunately

> force coverage regardless of need

This is like, the main way to make insurance affordable.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/adverseselection.asp

The link you provided doesn't say anything about ERs, much less ER profits. I can't imagine this patient with the severe genetic disorder is getting much of his $1M/month health care treatment in the emergency room.

A more common example are blood clot disorders. Literally a door or ball hitting a person can cause major life threatening issues and are incredibly expensive depending on the type of disorder. That is the most common situation at his healthcare system. Someone with a rare disorder has been been dubbed internally as the million dollar man because of this. In this case the man has been on and off insurance and has come to their healthcare system's ER multiple times.

Edit: The media only publishes the most extreme examples so I wasn't left with many options.

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