What would happen if hospitals require payment up-front for services rendered?

There were already laws on the books, long before Obamacare, stating that hospitals could not refuse immediate life saving treatment to anyone on the basis of their ability to pay or their insurance status. Long before Obamacare, there were indigent care hospitals/clinics throughout the nation. In my area alone there are three hospitals that, long before Obamacare, offered services to low income and uninsured individuals... charging (or not) solely based upon income. The threat of people being thrown on the street to die is a patently false argument for Obamacare.

Edit - Consumer awareness and involvement in their own health care decisions is the ONLY thing that will bring costs under control. As long as people are able to go to the doctor and only be out of pocket a tiny amount at the time of service and never fully understand how much it's costing, they'll continue to overuse the system. As long as they'll continue to come, the system will continue to smile and give them an MRI to make sure that hangnail of theirs isn't infected. Full coverage, low deductible/out of pocket @ time of service, insurance IS the root of the problem. Obamacare will only stress it more.

My proposal - go back to insurance as it was in days gone by. Low premium, higher deductible plans that offer coverage for catastrophic/high cost health care. I would throw in 100% coverage for well care checkups. I'm on a plan like this now, and it's excellent. I'm guaranteed to be out of pocket no more than $5K in a year, $3K deductible then 20% copay until I hit the max out of pocket of $5K, then covered at 100%. I get the care I need, think twice before running up bills, ask what things cost and how necessary they are, etc. since I'm out of pocket during the deductible phase. But, I also have the peace of mind knowing that I won't be bankrupted if something major happens. It's been a real eye-opener to be on such a plan, and I believe it would make a huge difference if this type plan was more widely used.

Why don't people understand there is a built in cost to everything for "loss" ?

Every paper towel at McDonalds, every premium on every policy of every kind, your cable tv bill, everything has the cost of "inventory shrinkage" and other unauthorized uses.

Uninsured patients are the hidden cost in health care.

It costs so much because technology in medicine is expensive.

Nobody is going to lose a whole career for NOT ordering a whole battery of tests.

The majority of costs are associated with the final 1 year of life. Nobody dares go near that one for fear of "death panels".

Guess what,insurance companies and hospital panels already do that.

Republicans already discussed this issue in the GOP debates. The scenario given was that a father of two without insurance is in a serious car wreck....what should happen to him if he cannot pay. The GOP candidates provided NO solutions and the moderator asked if he should just be left to die. The GOP crowd cheered "Yeah" to that question.

Then people would demand costs driven by common sense.Why does it cost $40,000 to spend 5 days in a hospital ?

prices would go down because they wouldn't have to over charge me to pay off the debt because the guy in front of me skipped out on his bill

That would be awesome. Hospitals should be allowed to do that. **** the poor. FACT.