Rural Hospitals

Our insurance system makes sure that health care is very expensive. There has to be a profit every step of the way, or the insurance companies would fold. This affects everything from the enormous cost of educating doctors to drugs to the heating bill at your local hospital. Hospitals collect money from private insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, and some amount from patients, often just a fraction of the bill. And as more public health insurance is shifted to the private sector, like Obamacare and Medicare Advantage, more money is shifted to profits. That's bad enough, but if the most reliable payees, Medicare and Medicaid, are cut, it affects the entire system. You may not care about these programs because you don't use them, but collectively, they keep your local hospital running... but that could easily change.