Though he got his numbers a little off, didn’t he? Wasn’t it supposed to be 30 million uninsured, not 330,000? But the idea is the same. It would have been cheaper to just give those folks a free ride.
A Dem friend (I keep trying to convert her; she actually owns a brain) asked me what I would have done rather than Obamacare. I see the use of our emergency rooms as a walkin clinic by our uninsured as the major part of the problem. I tolk her I thought it would have been cheaper and better just to build a sliding-scale clinic right beside every emergency room in the country. When Joe Uninsured walks in with his hangnail and sees the triage nurse, she would make the decision to either have Joe continue on into the emergency area, or deflect him next door, to the clinic, where he could wait six hours to have his hangnail looked at. Then people with heart attacks etc. would actually go to the emergency area.
I’ve never seen this idea in print anywhere, and I was just wondering what our Freepers think of it.
Sounds about right to me. Similar to “sick call” in the military. I also foresee some crafty entrepreneurs stationing used cruise liners or purpose-built ships just outside the US territorial waters and doing everything from heart, plastic, gastric-bypass and liposuction to back surgery for dimes on the dollar and you get something of a “vacation” thrown in for the overall price. What do you think of that?
I would go further and have somebody on site at all times to teach you how to treat your own non-serious condition, so you don’t have to go to the hospital all the time if you,know what to,do.
I think people should have to pass through the urgent care to get to the ER.
Health Care Reform by John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness. Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Here is one FR link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2313920/posts
We actually have a hospital here that did that. There is a medi center connected to the emergency room. When you check in you see a triage nurse and she directs them which side to send you to. Everyone waits in the same waiting room so you don’t know where you are going until your name is called. It actually works well.
That would make WAY too much sense!
The libs wouldn’t be able to whip out their (fill in the blank — race, inequity, war on wimmins) cards fast enough, though.
You have a decent idea, absent the ambulance chasing lawyer camped out in the clinic next to the ER, waiting for someone who “should” have been treated at the ER to be sent to the clinic.
We used to call Ask A Nurse for basic triage, but then it became apparent that they were ALWAYS going to recommend going to the ER, we stopped calling them.
Oh, and if you want to “convert” someone from being a leftist, you have to address their assumptions, not their conclusions.
Read Sowell’s conflict of visions for an in depth analysis.
In our community they have such a place, but you must ‘be working’ to go there.....and it's not a walk in clinic. Just like when you ordinarily make an appointment with a Dr. you must also at this place.. If you are a no show you are warned...if you do that again you cannot participate.
They have very defined guidelines you must adhere to. It's “free” to those who have no funds but most seem to find enough equal to what you would pay as a co-pay if they had Insurance, though it's a “donation”. All the Dr's. and Nurses are volunteer.
What I have seen and heard from these folks is the patients have a sense of dignity because they “donate” if they want so don't feel like it's a handout. They comply with the instructions to take the medicine given etc. and few are no shows.
It's worked very well and I was happy to “donate” to this group because it was for those who work and for whatever reasons were unable to pay for medical care. I also learned people do not stay with them long term. Either their circumstances improve or they find work which has health benefits.
I haven't learned what will happen to these places since Obamacare...but I have heard some “free walk in” clinics are closing as ‘public donations have ceased or lowered since contributors believe now Obamacare will cover those people.