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Volume 352:1171-1173 March 24, 2005 Number 12 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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An implicit assumption of the U.S. health care system is that poor, uninsured persons who become ill can obtain free or discounted care. Although many individual physicians provide such services, uncompensated hospital care represents our safety net of last resort. Uncompensated care is defined as the sum of free care, for which the hospital does not expect payment, and bad debt, for which it attempts to collect payment. As free care and bad debt are currently reported, it is difficult to distinguish between them, but uncompensated care is not free. A small portion is covered by in-kind donations, and the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

Dr. Weissman is an associate professor of medicine and a lecturer on health care policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Institute for Health Policy and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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