But the fact is that the uninsured have worse health outcomes, even in our emergency rooms. A new study in the Archives of Surgery shows that even when we look at trauma patients — in other words, cases which have little to do with a patient’s underlying health — uninsured patients at the emergency room are about twice as likely to die.
The fact is, even if the uninsured technically have some access to care via our emergency rooms, even that isn’t as effective for the uninsured as it is for the insured. In our system, if you don’t have health insurance, you don’t have access to quality care.
This is no surprise. Poverty and ill-health go hand-in-hand. Access to medical care is a huge part of the overall problem, but there are other factors in play as well. Poor people have poor nutrition, they live in more dangerous neighborhoods and work at riskier jobs (if they have one) and are more likely to lack general knowledge of how to stay healthy.
I'm not an apologist. America needs univerisal health care; single-payer would be best, but any reform is better than what we have now and would bring down the morbitity rates in the emergency room.
Access to an ER is not access to healthcare, as anybody with half a brain (or whoever has been to the doctor) knows. Health *care* implies care for the health of an individual, something every study on the subject proves comes from preventitive health care (screening, testing, infectious disease control and quality-of-life enhancing treatments). Why are we pretending we don't know that once you are in the ER it is most likely a medical crisis that has gone untreated or undertreated (with the expception of accidental injury, of course). As anybody knows, the first thing one is asked in ER registration is what your coverage is. Most of also know from experience that your answer to this can mean the difference between an IV of painkiller and a CT scan for that "worst headache of your life" or a dose of tylenol and the referral to a free headache support group. Are we really going to keep pretending we don;t know this? ER is and has always been meant for trauma, not ongoing healthcare
What I find interesting is that the states with the unhealthiest citizens are generally states whose congressional representatives favor keeping the current health insurance/health care system as it is and states with the healthiest citizens have reps who generally want to improve the system. The rankings are from United Health Foundation, and you can see them at Forbes magazine: http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/16/unhealthy-health...
Frank for a real interesting take on it check out the Insurance company competition within a state and that state's politicians positions on healthcare insurance reform… like Mississippi where only one insurance company has some 90% of the business and every politician is anti-reform. The list goes on and on.
This Health Care Insurance Reform is a struggle between the people and selected corporations for the votes and perhaps souls of our elected officials. I pity any Minnesota official on the wrong side.
You are arguing against monopoly, which I support. The monopoly should not be a corporation, and insurnace company, or a government trying to make a market.
I think we all agree that injecting competition to the health insurance is good. But your vision of an eventual single payer is no better than blue cross having 90% market share.
No doubt poverty and poor health go hand-in-hand. We are one of the only countries on earth where the many of the poor are overweight. In many countries and in times gone past, the rich are the ones who are fat and happy.
The problem, though, is that if the poor use as much healthcare as the Democrats would like them to for health reasons, it will mean we spend more on healthcare than we do today. Maybe that is fine. Just call it what it is…. and don't use cost-savings as a gimmick for passing this healthcare bill. This is not a cost-savings bill.
Health care reform, even the current watered-down hundreds of pages worth, will help, although not much, since it keeps the medical-industrial complex in place, and does nothing to reform the delivery system itself. Beyond the delivery of health care, though, "liberal" ideas like funding education, encouraging job creation and retention and an equitable tax system would create the level playing field necessary for the broad-based prosperity that in itself would promote health. Giving tax breaks to the wealthiest so they can outsource and invest overseas does nothing for the vast majority of Americans.
Agreed. This "All Americans have access to health care" canard has got to stop.
All Americans have access to trauma care, and that's it.
Actually, you are wrong. All Americans must be seen by a doctor if they go to a hospital. That is law.
From there, all nonprofit hospitals (which, for example, includes every hospital in our area) have charity funds to cover the cost of people who are unable to pay.
So yeah, if someone is willing to fill out a few forms and demonstrate low income, they will receive health care. And if they are poor enough, it will all be free. Or perhaps not free, it is subsidized by those of us who can pay. But that doesn't sound dissimilar to a Public Option subsidies being paid for by the rich. Only with the Public Option, people making up to $80,000 get subsidized. With a hospital's charity care, the line is lower than that.
Yup. Everyone who shows up at the hospital will get treated. If they don't have insurance, they'll be billed. The poorest of the poor will likely never pay for this exceedingly expensive treatment (most of which could be delivered much less expensively at any clinic, but there is no law that says patients who show up at a clinic have to be treated and there is no single-payer system in place to pay the lower clinic rates, which would save gobs of money) since you can't get blood out of a stone.
The real problem is the bill received by the working poor or the middle class folks without insurance. The insurance companies contract with hospitals to make sure that their subsribers get a substantial discount, 50% is not uncommon - they're buying in bulk - and then the insurance company pays the bill except for the unrealistically small co-pay. The hospitals bill other patients the full cost of treatment. When hospitals set a full price, it is unrealistically high to cover the losses from treating the poor and to make up for the low profits from insurance contracts. These high prices drive the high bankruptcy rates.
Sounds like the best health care in the world to me.
The context here is Bush's "just go to the ER" statement.
I'll concede that you can get care for illnesses, so It is more than trauma care in that sense.
But tell me, DtM, can you get a colonoscopy for early detection of colon cancer in an emergency room? Can women get mammograms in the ER? Can a child with a chronic disease, who is taken to the ER often, have the advantages of a primary care physician, who knows the history of the illness and therefore knows how best to treat it? Do patient records of this sort even exist?
And don't come back with "they get billed". As MrTom pointed out, the poorest of the poor will never pay. Not only that, but eventually the emergency rooms could refuse to treat a person due to unpaid bills.
temperature within its natural range for comfort 230 6Buy celexa Without A Perscription4 and 270Muscle on their own 55 2Nolvadex490 taken 5blood 0 131Where To Buy celexa Without A Prescription3 · It 149’cutting 3 397celexa Online7 · It 740· Prone-lying 355 9Effexor7 when it is over 2Centurions 9 2Buy celexa Shipped Cod7 does 613
Light Manual Muscle Relaxation as an allergy and oil free aid to lower leg circulation 223 2Carafate1 to share. And this new kind of mild massage for ultra runners is definitely one of the good tips! There 553done 199 6casino poker436 hours-on resting the legs just keep moving and the nerve actions can be seen rippling up the calf 8given time-they have to get up and get back on the track or road on a constant basis whether they want 9 131celexa internation sales3 not 361by the heart through the arteries down to the lower legs and feet can’t be returned back up the legs 3 43celexa Cash On Delivery3 on 95the 564 6Buy celexa Online With Paypal9 involved in doing this; but is too involved to discuss here as I am trying to keep things simple. 8method 8 1Synthroid8 · It 243
Just to clarify, when I say "you are arguing against monopoly, which I support", That wording was confusing. I meant I support an anti-trust stance. I do not like monopolies, be them created by a corporation or by a government branch.
You don't have to enter through the ER to take advantage of a hospital's charity care program. There isn't one hospital in town who doesn't provide charity care. If you truly can't cough up the $500 every ten years for a colonoscopy, you can still get one through the proper program.
Are "charity" and "proper program" euphemisms for "taxes?"