LYLAS

The second option is our current system, or other systems without mandates. In this universe, our hypothetical young man receives at least emergency care because hospitals are required to treat the urgently ill without regard for their ability to pay, thanks to a bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. But the costs of his treatment are not absorbed by the hospitals. They are passed on to consumers, employers, and the government in the form of higher insurance premiums. One 2009 study estimated the cost absorbed by those who are insured for those who aren’t at $1,100 per family. This is one of the ways in which the pre-Obama health care system is socialized—indirectly, inefficiently, and unfairly.

—‘Let him die’, Jacob Weisberg’s analysis in Slate of Republican presidential contender’s positions on healthcare and the uninsured.