>>Really messed up huh?
And yet US hospitals run close to the wire, similar to airlines in that 3 days of delayed accounts receivable can take you down. I was there when quite a nice facility in Birmingham, Alabama was unable to satisfy banking covenants and closed. Lesson for me was that it's not the facilities or physicians making biggest bucks in the US or causing twice the cost per capita compared to other first world nations.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
