It's more complicated than that. If you're uninsured, you can apply for aid. If your financial need is considered great enough, they might write off part or all of your bill. Hospitals set aside a certain amount of "charity" money to cover these cases (from the extra they get from other sources). In this case, the uninsured person is having their bill paid by others.

If you're uninsured and rich, well, you're paying sticker price and making the hospital very happy.

If you're uninsured and somewhere in the middle, you could be helped by the hospital, you could be screwed, really depends on the hospital.

Private insurance companies pay more than Medicare/Medicaid on basically all procedures. The price they negotiate is lower than the list price of a procedure, but remember, these sticker prices are hugely inflated. Hospitals will often raise the list price to renegotiate higher prices with insurers. In the end, I would suspect it is largely private insurance providing extra income for the hospitals (more common than cash patients, and they pay a greater % of the list price than Medicare).

Here's more info: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/hospitals-highest...

Both happen. I think the point OP was making is that the cost for anyone who pays (insured or not) is higher in order to compensate for the required care to people who never pay.

Obviously they aren't taking money from people who can't pay. They take money from people who can pay.