Can anyone state what the unpaid obligations for health care services are each year?

I have never been able to find such a number and if it did exist, it would be bogus. Why? Because health care has been hijacked from the doctors and the crazy government and large insurers are completely in control, so they play all the numbers games they want to concoct problems so they can have MORE control and MORE money from the taxpayers.

Example–what the taxpayer is billed for drugs:

“In 2005, ConsumerAffairs.com ran “Illinois Sues 48 Drug Companies,” in which they explained the lawsuit filed by the Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, which involved a different method of increasing the money taxpayers shelled out for prescription drugs. Nearly 20 other states filed similar suits by the article’s publication. State and federal health insurance programs reimburse providers (doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals) based on prices that the drug manufacturers list as benchmarks to various publications. The difference between the benchmark price, also known as the Average Wholesale Price (AWP), and the price the providers actually pay is known as the “spread.” The actual sales price of the drug is less than what a consumer or even the government pays for the prescription medication. This means that the government pays based on the AWP which is higher than what the providers pay and the providers are reimbursed by the government (taxpayer) at the higher rate. Remember that Medicare and Medicaid patients do have co-pays and their co-pays are based on these AWP prices as well, so they are paying more than they should. One example that was provided in the article was that of a medication for asthma—a condition well over half-a-million people in Illinois suffer from. The AWP price was $14.99, providers could obtain it for $4.05—nearly a 300 percent mark-up—ensuring a substantial profit at taxpayer cost. Madigan noted a Massachusetts example as well where the mark-up for a medication was 54,199 percent. Her lawsuit also claims that providers received secret discounts and rebates in many cases and that various unethical marketing schemes and confidentiality agreements boosted profits to providers.
In 2006, ConsumerAffairs.com noted a study done by Consumers Union where they checked the price of six common prescription drugs and compared the price at 261 retail pharmacies in Broward County (Florida) with the Medicare Part D “full-cost” price by the 44 insurance plans in that county. They compared the results with what the VA pays. The results were that 80 percent of the time the lowest cost for each drug was to be found at the pharmacy over the Part D price—but the patient had to shop around to find the best savings, otherwise the Part D averages were better. Note that this was before Wal-Mart introduced $4 prices on many generic prescriptions. However, the VA, which is allowed to negotiate for the lowest price did much better. In the study, the Part D price was $48.38, the average retail price (not going with the least expensive pharmacy) was $55.86, but the VA price for the same drugs was $22.06 (“Report: Shopping Around Beats Medicare Drug Prices,” 11 October 2006). Clearly the advantage of negotiating a lower price for a medication is one which government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid should be taking full advantage of.”
–Cassandra Nathan’s Save America, Save the World, pp. 155-157

Hospitals are frequently taking advantage of the public:

“Hospital care accounts for around one-third of the cost of health care in the U.S. (“Health Care Costs Analyzed,” Maine Nurse, August-October 2004). In 2002, nonprofit hospitals received $12.6 billion in tax exemptions stated the Congressional Budget Office. More than $3 billion was saved in property taxes. The IRS does not require a specific amount of charity care or community benefits to qualify for nonprofit status (Boulton, “Tax Status of health systems faces scrutiny: Communities question non-profit designation,” 11 March 2007, nonprofithealthcare.org). Charity Navigator web site reported in 2005 that the Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, wanted to require that nonprofit hospitals do nonprofit work. Because they are exempt from income and property taxes, Madigan wanted to require them to spend 8 percent or more of their annual operating costs on charity care. She said that in Illinois, currently they’re spending less than 1 percent on charity care (Stamp, “What’s Wrong With Charities in America?,” 5 April 2006, charitynavigator.org).”
–Nathan’s book, pp. 139-140

Also:
“In 1998, the CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste) wrote a disheartening report on nonprofit hospitals indicating most were not worth the taxes they were exempted from. It was called Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth from Non-Profit Hospitals? In 2006, they revisited the issue and noted that nothing really had changed. One example in the short update (Wright, “Nonprofit Hospitals Still Abusing Tax-Exempt Status,” 26 July 2006) noted that one “nonprofit” hospital had charged a low-income, uninsured woman $20,296 for a procedure that Medicare would pay $3,994 to perform. The report urges government and taxpayers to look at the community benefits provided by nonprofits in light of what they receive (the massive tax breaks) and what they pay their people (benefits included) and the surpluses they run, as well as their billing practices.”
–Nathan’s book, pp. 142-143

There’s more, but the point is this, so long as these people (big pharma, hospitals) can just pull numbers out of the air as they currently do, they can claim anything they like with NO substantiation whatsoever. THAT is part of the problem in the country. Because we lack price transparency, we can’t compare prices accurately. Because about 70% of the care provided is paid for by a third-party, we can’t get an accurate. (Insurers get massive, unwarranted, and untaxed discounts) and whose price are you going to use? Medicare’s price? Medicaid? What’s given to United Health? The bill to the uninsured?

Oh and read this scary thing about another deal health insurers get:
ftc.gov/os/comments/healthcarecomments/meidinger.htm
is the source. Please note that is a GOVERNMENT site so they were happy enough to get testimony from the man, so he’s got some credentials:

Meidinger stated that “cash-paying” consumers pay 3-4 times as much for identical services as those with some manner of insurance.

They are billed under the “accrual accounting system” where the amount billed is the income for the facility (the amount due).

Health insurers, however, get a REDUCED CHARGE and the hospital “writes difference off to an adjusting account called Third Party Contract Adjustment.” He states that this is a “false accounting entry.” He says what would be accurate is “kickback given to Insurance Company for recommending its policyholders.”

Meidinger notes that a normal person or business would file a 1099C form for “forgiveness of debt” and he’d be taxed on that. This is not done with insurers (which helps explain why they rake in massive profits).

There are certainly doctors who go bankrupt. There are facilities bankrupted by insane governmental policies, such as “compassionate entry” whereby the US Border Patrol is instructed to let the ill enter the US for FREE to them, expensive to us, medical care.

“Dickson emphasizes that not all the free care is going to illegal aliens passing through on their way to other states. About half goes to Mexicans who use the Copper Queen as their personal emergency-care facility. In effect, the hospital, which performs general surgery, has become the trauma center for that stretch of northern Mexico. If an ambulance pulls up to the border-crossing point near Bisbee and announces “compassionate entry,” the border patrol waves it through, and the Copper Queen is compelled to treat the patient. It is one more program that Congress mandates but does not pay for. “If you make me treat someone,” says Dickson, “then you need to pay me. You can’t have unfunded mandates in a small hospital.” Although the Medicare drug act that passed last year provides for modest payments to hospitals that treat illegal aliens, Dickson says there is a catch that the U.S. government has yet to figure out. “How do I document an undocumented alien? How am I going to prove I rendered that care? They have no Social Security number, no driver’s license.’”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,995145-7,00.html

So the universal health care crowd doesn’t get the point: it’s a combination of government interference and large insurers who cause the problems. Otherwise, LASIK and plastic surgery would be as ridiculously priced as a life-saving appendectomy is to an uninsured person. We would also lack cases such as:

http://www.simplecare.com/

http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/0217er17.html

and more.

You have to ask yourself: why can an uninsured person walk into a Wal-Mart with an upper respiratory infection, get treated in a short space of time, and walk out with prescription filled for likely under $100 when you can’t hit a doctor’s office or an ER for that price–and that doesn’t include the medicine?

Answer: the typical doctor is forced to jump through the hoops of the insurance companies which drive up his costs. ERs are trying to make up their losses from unfunded idiocy like “compassionate care” and ridiculous discounts to rich insurers on the backs of the uninsured. An URI does NOT need to be seen in an ER, but neither do “stubbed toes” and “poison ivy” as is done frequently where illegals rule the roost. The GOVERNMENT created a stupid, indefensible position where an illegal can go to an ER for what is a MINOR medical problem, waste resources, and skip out for free OR he could go to a doctor, urgent care center, or walk-in clinic and pay $100. Which is he going to choose: free or $100? Which oh which is he going to choose, Uncle Sam? He clearly chooses FREE to him and probably close to a grand billed to the taxpayer.
(Oh and lest the uninformed claim the “poison ivy” story is false:
Reed, “The Uninsured: A health care crisis,” 10 June 2007, news-press.com. Visitors to the ER that were treated included people with:
“toothaches, stubbed toes, rashes, chest pain, nosebleed, itchy eye, headache, poison ivy, cuts, anxiety, and a broken ankle.”)