Poor, Uninsured Don't Fill Emergency Rooms -- Study

yahoo.com ^ | Tue Oct 19 | Maggie Fox

[My2Cents]

more than 80 percent of patients seen in emergency rooms have health insurance

Yeah, but that other 20% is the killer.

[Texasforever]

I would bet that 75% of the "uninsured" are young, single and have insurance available that they do not wish to pay for.

[FormerACLUmember]

This article will come as a great relief to all those Los Angeles ERs and hospitals closed because of illegal Mexicans flooding the ERs with uncompensated care.

[Prime Choice]

A new study on emergency rooms disputes the common wisdom that the poor and uninsured are filling them up.

Gee, things sure have changed since June 25, 2004!

[Prime Choice]

This article will come as a great relief to all those Los Angeles ERs and hospitals closed because of illegal Mexicans flooding the ERs with uncompensated care.

Now-now. Can't go confusing the Leftists with inconvenient facts! ; )

[FormerACLUmember]

lol

[GeronL]

Is that nationally?? Maybe they should just try doing the study in LA, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso.

[My2Cents]

All I can say is that if 80% of emergency room patients are insured, why are emergency rooms closing around California. I wonder what the percentage of people in Calif. are uninsured? Virtually all of them go the local emergency room for a headache. And virtually all of them aren't suppose to be here.

[Deb]

Garbage.

[Arizona Carolyn]

The whole uninsured numbers are skewed anyway. A person changing jobs and without insurance for one day is considered uninsured for a full year.

According to numbers the largest number uninsured are 18 - 39 and choose to use money for recreation instead of insurance; most unisured make over $50K a year.

Uninsured doesn't mean without healthcare -- the poor get healthcare through Medicaid and the elderly through Medicare. A large number of the elderly have secondary policies and the poor elderly have Medicaid secondary.

So, if these numbers are correct and 75% of emergency room visits have insurance -- I assume then a large number of hospitalized have insurance -- so what exactly is driving insurance up by double digits when they are outsourcing claims processing overseas? and most insurance is handled electronically these days? CEO Salaries????

[okie01]

Yeah, but that other 20% is the killer.

I cannot imagine any business giving away 20% of its product and surviving.

Try it with a restaurant, for example, and see how long you can stay open.

Whoever authored this study has no concept of economics.

[Texasforever]

so what exactly is driving insurance up by double digits when they are outsourcing claims processing overseas?

Two things. Aging population and diseases that used to be fatal are now very expensively treated. The dichotomy is that health care is so good now that many people that would have died 20 years ago now have treatments that keep them alive for decades but at a very high cost.

[crushelits]

Frivolous lawsuits by the likes of Breck Girl and his goons.

[Texasforever]

That too but with the advent of transplantation of kidneys, livers, hearts and lungs along with medications that control everything from diabetes to high blood pressure along with longer and longer cancer remissions people are just living longer than they did a short time ago but the cost of keeping them alive is extremely expensive. This is not a bad thing BUT it is a reality and it is costly.

[texastoo]

Down here on the border in south Texas more than 75% of the total health care is paid by the government. Less than 25% of the people have health insurance.

[garandgal]

An estimated 45 million Americans lack health insurance, but that leaves 85 percent of the population with coverage, either public or private. Hospitals have long complained that their emergency rooms are overcrowded. Between 1992 and 2002, emergency department use climbed 23 percent, from 89.8 million visits to 110 million visits.

So, 110 MILLION visits; that leaves around 20 MILLION uninsured "visitors". Take the lowest possible cost of an emergency room visit (maybe $500), and you will begin to see the problem. Of course, many of these visits will end up in tens of thousands of dollars in costs...so add accordingly.

Of course, the article also says that people that ARE covered are covered by private or public insurance. So add to that AGAIN, the difference between what the government pays, and what the hospitals actually charge; for those who are covered by "public" means.

We all pay the difference.

Plus, insurance companies invest money in the market. If they guess wrong...well we can't have them losing money because of their own mistakes now, can we?

[Innisfree]

New medicines and treatments; tech. innovations; the ever-increasing cost of R and D; a fat, sedentary population that has little interest in prevention. Add a flood of illegal immigrants and you get our current situation.

[endthematrix]

Where is the site of the report? I'd like to read between the lines...

[endthematrix]

"This is what happens in the golden hour, when the emergency rooms are jammed. People are being treated in waiting rooms and on gurneys in hallways and people in wheelchairs are waiting hours for treatment,' said Peter Warren, a spokesman for the California Medical Association which is part of the Coalition to Preserve Emergency Care. The coalition is sponsoring Proposition 67, the Emergency Medical Care Initiative that would impose a 3.7 percent surcharge on in-state telephone calls.

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Now we are to subsidize the crisis with phone taxes? We pay one way or another!