[quote=livinincali]
What makes you think costs will come down. Say there’s a 20% reduction in emergency rooms visits because patients go see the doctor before they end up in the emergency room. Are some emergency rooms going to close? Are some emergency rooms going to downsize? What if instead the emergency rooms jack up the prices on their remaining patients to make up for the decrease in the number of patients they see. Does that lower the cost of healthcare in this country?
[/quote]
You have this kind of backwards. Reductions of ER visits are much more likely to be from patients that previously had no coverage and weren’t paying. That won’t reduce ERs viability, it will increase it. They’ll be servicing a higher percentage of paying patients, so if anything, they can decrease prices. And those patients who were previously getting free ER treatment, are more likely to see non-ER providers, with treatment at a much lower cost. So yes, it will lower the overall cost of healthcare.
