Posted on 06/17/2009 11:16:48 AM PDT by Baladas
A recent study by the Integrated Care Collaboration (ICC) of emergency room visits in Central Texas discovered that, over the past six years, nine individuals have made 2,678 ER visits to local hospitals, at a cost of $3 million. One of these people visited 145 times last year and 554 times in the past five years.
Reading these stats reinforces my conviction that any unified national health care program will have to include that ugly word, rationing. Nine people should not be able to run up a $3 million tab when so many others lack basic services such as vaccines and prenatal care.
These nine are the poster people for wretched excess, but the problem of people using the ER as a clinic for non-emergency complaints is widespread. According to a CDC study, of the 119.2 million ER visits in 2006, only 15.9 million could be classified as true emergencies. A staggering 11 percent of all non-emergency medical care visits in the U.S. now take place in the ER rather than doctor's offices or clinics.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyfinance.com ...
The proper way to fix a supply/demand problem is to GET GOVERNMENT'S GRUBBY HANDS OUT OF THE MARKET!
If medical care prices were simply allowed to adjust to the market, there would BE no problem!
LET ER'S REFUSE TREATMENT!
We don't scream bloody murder at a restaurant because it demands payment for food, nor an apartment complex because it demands payment for shelter. Why do we go nuts over the idea that hospital care should be paid for by the recipient???
If someone is able to and voluntarily chooses to give medical treatment for free, fantastic! Kudos! But to FORCE a hospital to provide treatment without payment is the very definition of unfair and wrong.
Were they rodeo clowns?
[Reading these stats reinforces my conviction that any unified national health care program will have to include that ugly word, rationing. Nine people should not be able to run up a $3 million tab when so many others lack basic services such as vaccines and prenatal care. ]
That’s what Free Markets are for, capitalism is a way of rationing goods according to who is willing to pay for them. Socialism rations by the goveernment billy club. Take your choice.
Waits in the emergency room are free.
And you do not fill out paperwork to use the restroom.
I think this is a case of filling in someone’s name to assign expense of treatment that the paperwork dropped through the cracks on.
If your primary care has E. R. as initials, you may be an illegal alien.
You do- twice. Your private insurance rates go up, plus your taxes go up.
No.
Let’s change the law that says that people have to be seen in the ER.
People who don’t have insurance often use emergency rooms as regular doctors. Years ago when my mom was rushed to the ER, some lady in the waiting room was pitching a fit because my mom- who had stopped breathing and was BLUE, was seen before her kid with a tooth ache. I nearly beat the woman to death.
Knowing one the local ER doctors in a smaller city where I work, I can attest to the fact that his services are routinely abused by many such people. People lacking insurance routinely go to the ER for earaches, toothaches, colds, flu, minor cuts, scratches, and a variety of CHRONIC aches, ailments, and pains.
I worked in a large hospital’s ER...located in a major Northeastern city,for 20+ years.At that time I don’t think that region had nearly as big a population of illegals as many areas of the country (the South,Southwest and New York City,for example) have today.In our ER no more than 5% of the visits were genuine medical emergencies.Another 15-20%,or so,could be categorized as “semi urgent”.The rest were people using the ER as a 24/7/365 walk-in clinic that could *not* turn you away and could *not* demand that you pay a single nickel.
Translation: They were drug addicts begging for drugs.
She likely did not know their citizenship. Hospitals avoid asking inconvenient questions because they know that there would be an uproar if the public knew how much they are subsidizing illegals.
When these people are in the hospital they not only make repeated reqests for the drug ordered for them while they stay but they often demand a higher dose and a more frequent dose.
If that demand is not met they demand to speak to hospital administation.
The threat of a lawsuit for alleged negligence, racism, blah blah blah, makes the hospital protect itself, the doctors that ‘cooperate’ with them are the ones who repeatedly get hired.
Personally I think the drug companies are behind this. If you think about it, they and the hospitals stand to gain by it.
The doctors are rather forced to write these prescriptions or it’s ‘malpractice’ crap. I don’t even know all the ways these scams work, but I’m telling you the one girl I’m talking about has been to our hospital last year over 50 times.
It’s not the only hospital she goes to, and she does not work for a living. She’s making money on the drugs.
Everyone working in the health care field is aware of this. This story is no bs.
I like the creative people in Atlanta that figured out if you called 911, the ambulance would give you a free ride downtown.
How cool is that? (/sarcasm)
Oh, I believe you. Just amazing that people can get away with this stuff. Always interesting to hear these stories of people that are in these fields where they can give the inside scoop--cops, teachers, doctors, nurses, border patrol. Depressing as all get out, but interesting. Haven't those compassionate leftists done such a wonderful job?
Oh, yeah. I know.
Another scam is people who are the official caregivers of their aged or infirm relatives get their social security checks.
They get tired of doing the heavy load and admit their relatives all the time. The Mexicans are great for this.
The father or mother can’t walk, can’t feed themselves, have Alzheimers, etc.
They admit them ‘they fell down’ we don’t know what to do, why are they falling. Ensues is a complete medical workup. A couple of weeks in the hospital often.
They are advised to place these people in proper care settings, but oh no, they would lose the social security, so....’can’t do that to dear old mom or dad’
they take them home and readmit them to another hospital only a day later, same day, next week whatever,
and the money keeps coming in and the relative is out of their hands.
No problemo amigo, because some illegal aliens have all the time in the world. They don't work, you know.
Well, if that lady with her sons toothe ache (who should have went to a dentist) was a paying customer, and your blue mother was not, then who do you think should have been seen first?
9 Texans making ER visist costing $3M averages out to $333,333.00 per person.
Extrapolating this out across the entire country would bring the tab to 109,999,890,000,000.00
Your stories make me want to cry. I bet you’ve got a thousand more. A couple of weeks in the hospital? The cost has got to be enormous. My little girl was in the hospital Memorial week for three days. The cost was over $17,000 before the insurance whittled it down to $10K.
What a stupid thing to ask. ERs aren’t run on who pays. They’re run on who is most critical. The most critical patient is seen first. Oh and yeah, my mom was a paying customer.
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