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With the U.S. Supreme Court debating Obamacare, talk of freedom has been ringing in the land.

In a related story, this freedom of ours sure is getting expensive.

Unnoticed as the debate rages over the mandate in the health-care reform, this state just passed a grim milestone. The amount of "charity care" delivered at state hospitals reached, for the first time, the $1 billion mark.

The state hospital association reported last month that for 2011, the total medical bills not collected because people were judged too poor to pay was $1.1 billion in Washington. Five years ago, the figure was only half that.

Another $895 million went uncollected in 2011 due to "bad debts" which is when patients don't pay their bills but are considered capable of doing so.

Combined, the two figures mean local hospitals now face $2 billion in unpaid bills every year. And rising fast.

The eye-watering price of free health care has exploded for predictable reasons. More people with no insurance plus cuts to government health programs equals more patients who can't pay showing up in emergency rooms.

Tuesday's Supreme Court argument was all about this problem.

At one point, the lawyers labeled the people coming to the emergency rooms as "free riders." They use health care when they get sick, but haven't insured themselves against that possibility. Either because they can't afford to, or choose not to.

I was briefly a free rider when I was young and stupid (I know, that's redundant). I didn't have much money and figured I wouldn't need to go to the doctor, so I took the risk. Nothing happened, so it all worked out in my case.

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Health-care freedom can be costly