Have you been to an emergency room on a Saturday night lately? I have. The dregs of society show up in spades, dragging their snot nosed kids in every time they get a sniffle or a cut....

If you are poor and cannot afford insurance you have to go to the one place that cannot (legally) refuse to see you, the ER.

Poor people generally use the ER as their primary care giver -- and generally only go there when the situation is severe (which means it costs much more than had they been able to get preventative care).

And we still aren't answering the basic question: Who pays when the "dregs" default on their hospital bill?

At least under a tax based system that worker would be paying something into the system.

You're actually supporting a system that allows people to just toss hospital bills in the garbage and not pay one penny.

You're paying already Poco, you're paying already.

When $7/hr worker goes to the ER for (insert illness here) and defaults on his hospital bill -- the hospital just raises rates on you to compensate.

I like your idea and agree with it, but if the Networks can make more money keeping things the way they are....

How much money do they get from advertising?

Now compare that to how much they would get if they cut out advertising and sold the show directly to you for $1.99?

There was a similar debate that came up on a different topic at (gaps!) a different website. Some cities are trying to create "free" wi-fi for the whole city -- and some cities were giving up on their plans to provide wi-fi because the local telecome monopolies were blocking/subverting them. Why would Comcast simply allow access to the internet for free? They can make more money blocking innovations like that and maintaining their monopoly. "Want to visit Salon.com? Then give me $50 bucks a month! We're the ONLY internet provider in your area! Ha ha ha!"

AT&T did the same thing with the iPhone. Everyone on earth WANTS (nay, begs!) for the iPhone to be Skype enabled. But while that would be a huge boon to consumers, it would cripple AT&T ability to force people into one of their outrageous monthly plans. Most good consumers wouldn't want to pay AT&T $100 a month just to make a phone call and would much rather just use Skype. AT&T knows that and is actively working against the best interests of the customer for no other reason than to use their market advantage (almost monopoly) to force customers into one of their plans even though they really don't want to!

And so it goes with the Networks.

Right now they are getting ads and revenue from selling shows online.

It is in their best interest to keep the online experience BAD so that the majority will still keep watching the Network on their TV's (along with the commercials).

They want the online experience to be good enough to be an additional revenue stream -- but keep it bad enough so that it doesn't compete with their advertising stream!

I think we're starting to see that the free-market really works against consumers a lot of the time. The free market, so Conservatives argue, will work to automatically make goods and services better and cheaper. Any yet....

AT&T is blocking Skype on the iPhone -- reducing the service and increasing price for consumers.

Local telecom/cable monopolies are working to block cities from implementing "free" wi-fi -- reducing services and increasing prices for the consumers.

Networks are intentially creating bad online video options so as not to compete with their advertising revenue -- reducing services and increasing prices for consumers.