You know when you have to go to the hospital that it isn’t going be cheap, but what you probably didn’t know that hospitals charge the highest prices to those who can least afford it.  That’s why it’s so great that a 20-year-old young woman is taking on hospitals in Montana for giving big price breaks to the insurance industry while sticking the uninsured with higher hospital bills.

Kudos to Jessica Gazelka, a Montana student, for stepping up to fight against the special discounts that hospitals provide for health insurers.  As the Helena IR reports, Ms. Gazelka says such arrangements “illegally fix prices and discriminate against the uninsured.”

The IR editorial board had the right idea when they wrote today that,

many of us view health care as a basic right, and it’s difficult to fit that basic right perfectly into the capitalist model that works so well in most of the rest of our economy.

The IR is also right that this case will be one to watch-especially for those who thought it was okay to stop asking about the problems with our health care system. Anyone who has been going around raving about how great everything is after so-called “reform” should take a page from Ms. Gazelka.

Regardless of the outcome of her case,  she’s already doing great work by reminding people that the system (still) isn’t working.