In 2001, America 's hospitals provided nearly $21 billion in uncompensated health care services
Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received. However, local governments bore the burden of $1.44 billion in uncompensated health care costs and local law enforcement costs not paid for by the state.
I've said that the era of the inevitable closure of community hospitals is over because I want community hospitals increasingly to become community health hubs where you have the physios, some of the day cases, the GPs, mental health services and some of the charity-provided services like Aid UK.
One such troubling provision is a tax increase to pay for the $635 billion included in the budget for health care 'reserve funds.' Health care reform is desperately needed in America, but I'm concerned that $635 billion will be a down payment on socialized medicine, causing the impersonal rationing of health care and destroying the doctor-patient relationship.
The world today has 6.8 billion people...that's headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.
In addition, California spends nearly $1 billion a year in Medi-Cal services for an average of 780,000 illegal immigrants a month, over and above emergency health services.
Truly affordable but high-quality health care tools and services are the only means by which quality health care can be provided to all.
Political grandstanding might make for great soundbites for the evening news, but it will do nothing to help the people that go to work every day knowing that they're one health emergency away from bankruptcy. It will do nothing to help the hospitals struggling to keep their doors open under the crushing cost of uncompensated care.
What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs.
If we're going to be able to provide access to quality, affordable health care to every American - we need to have the trained health care professionals inside hospitals to provide that care.
Canada is currently the only major industrialized country in the world that does not allow any private administration of health care services that are provided by the public system.
In order to really give mental health the focus and attention it deserves, we need to bring together and integrate all the services that provide women with the care they need. This includes the mental and physical health services, as well as social care.
2,074 pages isn't nearly enough to cover health care for America.
And under the existing circumstances, I understand there are situations where people indeed need care and need services, but I believe in America that the majority of those people are getting those services under situations and circumstances that are afforded to them by their health care providers and their state government.
Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.
In a successful health system, the proportion of per-capita health dollars used for home care, outpatient primary care, and preventive services should actually increase, not decrease, relative to those for acute hospital care.