It may not have been "a couple of bucks."  If your insurance company
raises your rates by 50%, for example (which is not uncommon), a small
business may just not be able to afford it.   Ideally, you'd have time
to shop around, but it's not an ideal world--you have to meet your
expenses and pay your salaries and keep your customers happy if you
expect to stay in business.  In my state, I couldn't find ANY
affordable insurance at all so had to  just risk it for a while.  But
the main point was that the uninsured should not have to to pay higher
hospital rates.  There's charity care if you're practically destitute,
but a lot of middle-class people who lost their jobs recently have no
choice but to go uninsured.

No it is certainly *not* understandable.  One does not shoot
themselves over a couple of bucks (difference between policies).  If
it were that important they should have been shopping *long* before.

But understandable.  The price of health insurance has become so
outrageous that some businesses just can't afford it.

Double, since they likely also won't have any coverage for existing
conditions when (if) they get it back.

That was goddam stupid.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2004-02-24-hospital-bills_x.htm
Hospitals sock uninsured with much bigger bills
By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
Ed and Dianna Jellison let their business' health insurance lapse
while they shopped for a better price. But then Ed fell ill, spending
17 days in a Florida hospital as a viral infection ravaged his body.

Now the couple are fighting a $116,000 hospital bill, one they say
could be as low as $25,000 if an insurance company were paying it.

The tough truth for patients like the Jellisons — who earn too much to
qualify for charity care — is that they are often charged the highest
prices for hospital services.

Few know that. And they're stunned when they learn.

"If they accept $25,000 from an insurance company on a routine basis,
and what they're charging us for the same thing is $116,000, that's
not fair, and it's not right," says Dianne, who closed the couple's
roofing business and took a part-time job in a warehouse because Ed's
illness left him disabled.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2004-04-13-rising-hospital-costs
_x.htm

"Rapidly rising hospital charges have placed hospitals in the
spotlight. Critics say hospitals are unfairly using their growing
clout in many markets and charging far more than it costs to provide
services. Spending on hospital care is the fastest-growing segment of
the nation's health care tab."

"Because most hospitals rely on government health payments for about
50% of their revenue, and private insurers who negotiate discounts for
much of the rest, raising charges is one way hospitals can try to
bring in additional money from individuals and insurers not covered by
the discounts"

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/Insureyourhealth/P74840.asp
Profit-hungry hospitals are overcharging consumers an estimated $10
billion a year. Some deliberately work to keep bills indecipherable.
Here's how to fight back.

By Bankrate.com

American hospitals are fleecing patients out of billions of dollars
annually, and experts say that while some of the overcharges are
honest errors, many are deliberate.