Help FR Continue the Conservative Fight!
Your Monthly and Quarterly Donations
Help Keep FR In the Battle!
Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!
Posted on 05/22/2014 9:58:10 AM PDT by Hojczyk
A key cost-reducing aim of Obamacare was to reduce expensive emergency room visits by having taxpayers subsidize coverage for the uninsured. However, according to a forthcoming survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians, nearly half of ER doctors report they are seeing more, not fewer, people entering the emergency room.
Tenet Healthcare CEO Trevor Fetter told the Wall Street Journal the rise in ER visits is contrary to cost containment.
"It's all right with us [because] we run hospitals with emergency rooms, but in terms of the overall cost to the system, you'd want them to find care in a different setting," said Fetter.
The surge in ER visits is also creating crowding in places like Napa, California's St. Joseph Health Queen of the Valley Medical Center where patients are now put in the hallways on a regular basis because there is no space in the emergency room.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), himself a former OB-GYN, says it's yet another broken Obamacare promise.
"It was a special argument" that the law would stem ER visits, said Burgess.
Obamacare will cost U.S. taxpayers $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
One of its many, many failings.
One of the other reasons is that an ER visit is often covered, whereas the deductible is so huge in the new “Obamacare” policies that even people paying $800 a month for their policy will go to the ER rather than to a regular doctor.
Well at the beginning of this mess, we had 38 million uninsured. So we get Obamacare and 8 million signed up. Of course we still have people going to the Emergency Room....30 million are still uninsured and going to pay the measly 95 bucks out of their refund check from Income Taxes....not having insurance is no big deal for the 30 million at all.
We have urgent care in our area. Short wait and if you need hospital care, they’ll pave the path for you and call ahead. But I don’t think they do Medicaid or the uninsured.
What else is new? Is anyone learning anything? Or will people fall for the next "new and improved" government program and socialized "cure" that will surely fail while creating more poverty by taking more of everyone's money?
I believe the current figures are that 78% of the Obamacare insured, previously had insurance policies that were cancelled because they wee nonACA compliant. So if there was previously 38 million uninsured, there are still 36+ million uninsured.
That is a fairly uninformed statement for a healthcare CEO to make. It of course depends on the patient population, but for most hospitals the ER is a money loser, not maker. This is because of the large number of non-paying or underpaying patients. Medicaid patients are the worst about over-using the ER and the reimbursement for them is next to nothing. Then you have the uncovered illegals and working poor, who can't or won't pay their bills.
This is exactly what the Left intended, and they plan on running the hospitals into bankruptcy, so that they can sell another takeover. This time they'll be taking the infrastructure.
I recall on many message boards liberal obamacare supporters claiming that thanks to obamacare, ER visits would drop. While I argued the exact opposite: they would go up.
I love being proved correct against liberals, but at the same I hate being proved correct about the damage liberals are doing.
The real reason?.....people just keep doing what they are conditioned to do. Especially when it doesn’t cost them.
I have a cousin who is on Medicaid and her 16 or 17 year old daughter got pregnant. Cousin told me the other day that while daughter was pregnant they went to the ER 20 times because she ‘hurt’. Of course it didn’t cost them a dime.
Thanks....36 million going to the Emergency Room. Perhaps if they start making people pay for the emergency room they may go to a doctor instead. Make it so you can’t get rid of the bills in bankruptcy. That MIGHT be the only way to control the Emergency Room problem.
Also, many of these people don't have a doctor. To many of them it is like a free clinic, you sign in and wait until a they have time to see you. I see Mexican women who have brought their children in for routine checkups or follow up visits.
Hee hee.
(Not for long, tho. Not if Bonehead gets his way.)
I don’t think those ‘urgent care’ facilities accept medicaid or uninsured who won’t pay at checkout. From what I’ve heard, they’re nearly as expensive as a basic ER visit. My son had a bad cold, went to an ‘urgent care’ facility (because this stuff only happens on weekends) and paid out $400.
(I actually ordered one on ebay for around $10. If I had ANY clue how much fun it was going to be EVERYTIME I wear it out shopping etc, I would have paid 5 times that $10 for it!!!!)
I’m over 65 so on Medicare. It was $20...the same copay as if I went to my own doctor.
I think you are correct for nearly all the independent ones but the urgent care facilities around here are mostly operated by hospitals and therefore accept Medicaid patients just as the Hospital ER and admissions does.
I hope your son learned his lesson about going to the doctor for a cold.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.