Jonathan Ganz wrote:
In article ,
katy wrote:

Contained within those numbers are the thousands upon thousands who
receive Medicaid and who also are never refused treatment at hospitals
emergency rooms...yes...there is a problem with health care in this


While most, but not all, are given treatment, there are fewer and
fewer hospitals equiped to deal with emergency care... care that
wouldn't have be emergencies if they had access to preventative
treatment. ER is very, very expensive, and if the person can't pay, we
pay. Since people don't have ins, they tend to wait until the
situation is dire, which complicates treatment and recovery.


Sometimes I wonder what world you live in. I worled in the ehalth care
system on and off all my life. I can tell you that the emergency room is
the most abused medical facility that exists. I don't have the actual
statistics but I can guess that 1 out of every 10 patients is an
emergency. That is one of the major reasons insurance companies will now
no longer pay for the actual ER fee if there is not a procedure done or
an admission...as far as the "we pay" part, we will pay no matter what
for that particular segment of society that can't afford it. We pay
through taxes or through chartible contributions. What does it matter
what form it takes?

country...and it is not limited to just the poor...my solution? We
should get rid of health care insurance entirely and go back to paying
doctors out odf pocket...that way the industry would correct


How do you expect people who are maybe getting minimum wage or have
3/4 kids to pay out of pocket? It might "correct" itself, but between
now and then, many people would die as a result.

The problem is not that there isn't health care, it's that people don;t
know where to go to look for it...there are all sorts of prtograms that
are underused...when I was in HR I had a list of health services that
were available at either a gratis rate or fee based on pay...clinics run
by the county and some run by local churches...yet our employees, for
the most part young black women between 20-30 with 2-3 children (paid
BTW, over $10/hr) would still go to the ER when their kids had colds.
ANd we offered excellent inexpensive HMO insurance which the majority
opted to not buy into...many of the pharmaceutical companies have need
based programs now and I know that there are physicians out there that
will do necessary surgery for those who are desperately in need and
can't pay...Some will die, you say...well, this is going to flame
you...not enough people are dying in this country..the lengths we go to
to keep people alive is ridiculous...when people have to start paying
for 350K heart surgeries at the age of 80 then maybe there will be a
wake up call...you would think the whole country believes its going to
Hell when you look at our fear of dying...Dying is the inevitable end
that is supposed to happen, sooner for some than for others...