(CBS) Most Americans know that if you get sick enough to go to a hospital, it's going to be expensive. But you may be surprised to learn that hospitals all over the country charge their highest prices, by far, to those who can afford it least — the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.

Hospitals charge uninsured patients two, three, four or more times what an insurance company would pay for the same treatment. And, when the uninsured can’t pay, they often find themselves the target of collection agencies or in bankruptcy court.


It's people like Lisa and Scott Starbuck. The Knoxville, Tenn., couple was making about $50,000 a year, before taxes, in the computer-consulting business they run out of their home. A decade ago, they were downsized out of corporate jobs that provided health insurance. Lisa got insurance on her own, but Scott couldn't afford insurance after he was diagnosed with diabetes.

"Is it fair to say you were hoping against hope that the diabetes would get under control and there wouldn’t be any other illness?" Rather asked.

"We were just kind of gambling, I think, that that was gonna happen. But we didn’t have any choice," says Lisa Starbuck.

The couple lost their bet last year when Scott suffered chest pains and wound up in the emergency room at the University of Tennessee Medical Center — a non-profit teaching hospital.

Doctors diagnosed a mild heart attack. They inserted two stents to open up a blocked artery to his heart. It was a textbook case; there were no complications, and Scott was released after 72 hours.

A few weeks later, he got an itemized bill for more than $41,000.

"The biggest thing on there was the stents. The two stents were $19,000. And I’m not a medical professional, so I don’t know a lot, but I just didn’t see how that could be $19,000," says Lisa. "So I got on the Internet and looked up the list price, and it was $2,300."




Currently, the hospital is not allowed to "charge" any individual person more than the set price. However, they are free to accept less than the set price from anybody they wish.

They accept a fraction of the total bill from the insurance company but demand full payment from the individual without insurance.

Personally, this seems to beg for regulation. I see no issue with demanding and enforcing payment for services rendered. However, to force an individual to pay three or four times what the hospital would accept from the typical insurance carrier is just wrong.