Uninsured emergency

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=a732de8627daf07a&cat=a1e025da3c02ca7c

Uninsured emergency

Lack of insurance places growing burden on hospitals


Hospital emergency rooms have always provided a safety net for treating people who have no insurance. But, in Florida, that safety net is being stretched to the breaking point.

Officials say the growing number of uninsured and underinsured residents is overwhelming hospital ERs and straining the resources of the health-care industry. Medical professionals throughout the state are scrambling for solutions.

District 14, which includes Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties, tied for the second-highest rate of uninsured residents in the state at 24.4 percent. Only the Miami-Dade region ranked higher at 28.7 percent, according to a recent report by Charlotte's Uninsured/Indigent Health Care Panel.

Tom Rice, CEO of Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, presented the panel's report to the Charlotte County Commission on Tuesday. Rice said the next step will be conducting a formal needs analysis for Charlotte County. The $20,000 study primarily would be funded by Charlotte's three hospitals, he said. After the study is completed, more specific strategies will be proposed to improve access to health care.
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How can the hospitals keep their doors open when over a quarter of their patients have no insurance ... their barely making ends meet now...

What are the hospitals going to have to shutdown before the government does something???

[Roon]

1. We need universal health care

this is getting ridiculous.

[silverweb]

2. It's beyond obscene.

In my work, I hear daily that patient's are not getting prescriptions filled because of the cost/lack of insurance, are not taking therapeutic dosages of what they need in order to "stretch" their prescriptions, and are finding routine medications dropped from their insurance companies' formularies so that they are no longer covered. And these are the patients who are actually going to see their doctors. Many, many more people are completely foregoing doctor visits and/or diagnostic tests because of limited or nonexistant insurance coverage.

Our entire nation is in critical condition, and the healthcare situation is one of the major symptoms.

[Warpy]

4. I've been cleaning out furniture I need to sell to make room

for a few pieces I inherited. I found three prescriptions written in 2003 that I never had filled because I lost my job and could no longer afford them.

I can't begin to describe how deeply angry I am about this.

[Virginian]

6. I found an old prescription from 1983...

Actually it was the receipt that came with my filled prescription. The cost then was $8.00 The price of the same medicine today is over $80.00 for the generic. What happened?

[silverweb]

10. Unrestrained corporate greed happened.

Aided and abetted by our own government in their unholy partnership.

I'm one of the lucky ones in that I live close enough to Mexico to be able to get my checkups and medications there. $100 or so keeps me covered for three months.

[Psephos]

3. Sad to say, this is nothing new

It's been going on for decades. Federal law requires hospitals to provide emergency services regardless of ability to pay.

Many people don't realize that the law requires a minimum (and sizable) percentage of emergency hospital services to be rendered free of charge. Hospitals face penalties if that minimum level is not reached. These laws (technically, they're part of the Hill-Burton Act of 1975) direct hospitals to increase the prices charged to paying customers to cover those who don't pay. It's part of the reason why, in a hospital, an aspirin tablet costs $4 and a bandaid applied with Neosporin costs $28.

In return for providing free services, hospitals become eligible for federal funding for facilities expansion and acquisition of new equipment. These funds can also be used to offset program costs for training new physicians (residencies) and research-related initiatives. So despite their initial grumbling, hospitals are now pretty content with cost-shifting, having figured out how to work the system.

In a back-door way, cost-shifting insures the uninsured. Those who have insurance pay more than their share, those who don't pay less, or nothing. It doesn't seem like an efficient way to deliver emergency care. On the other hand, the thought of a huge bureaucracy overseeing it doesn't seem efficient either.

I don't know the answers, only the questions.

Peace.

[lovuian]

7. The answer is Universal Health the hospitals can't

keep going if their uninsured rolls keep going up up up...

the hospitals are ringing the alarm bells..."The US medical system is crashing"


nobody is listening...

[cdsilv]

9. Why a huge beauracracy?

We gave away 9 billion $$ in Iraq, w/NO ACCOUNTABILITY!!!!, due to 3rd world accounting systems...gee, they could not get people to give them a receipt for funds received? Even I, an accountingly challenged Dem can do that. How hard can it be?

Perhaps we could use some of those accounting systems to use tax $$ to pay for elections and universal healthcare?

The hypocrisy of the GOP knows no end. They own the US gov't, and are constantly screwing up. It boggles the mind.

If the HMO or the insurance company can choose my doc and meds, how is that different from
having the government do so? In a universal system only ONE organization does so. In our current system a whole bunch of organizations do so, VERY inefficiently and very ineffectively.

Of course our Corporate Masters will never let universal healthcare happen - too detrimental to profits.

If I didn't have kids living in the USA, I'd be outta here.... If I can convince my ex, we may leave anyway - we have friends and relatives in OZ.....and I'm a bit-head.

[liberalhistorian]

16. Excuse me, but that's total horseshit

that those without insurance "pay less, or nothing." They actually pay MORE. Hospitals negotiate deep bulk discounts with insurance companies so that those with insurance are actually charged far less than the uninsured for the same treatments. For example, the hysterectomy I had four years ago would have cost me $20,000 for the hospital bill and not the $6300 that my insurance was charged. The uninsured are charged sometimes up to five times more than the insured for the same treatments. One shill doing a study for the hospital industry actually called the uninsured a "cash cow" for hospitals because of this.

And hospitals are notoriously nasty and aggressive when it comes to collections, they are considered one of the top worst collectors in the country when it comes to collection tactics. And they treat the uninsured far worse than the insured, slapping liens on their houses, even if they're elderly and their house is all they have, taking whatever other little assets they may have through court judgments, wage garnishments (even for minimum wage and low-income workers!), etc.

Several hospitals have even used the very rare collection tactic known as "body attachments", whereby they have the person arrested and put in jail. And the people they've used this on have been people who've had pneumonia, appendicitis, miscarriages, etc., hardly conditions that can go untreated. Most hospitals nowadays are scum, frankly, even the non-profit ones are joining the nasty collections fray.

So sorry, I have NO sympathy for hospitals, NONE. Their sole concern is making things more luxurious for well-heeled patients, and padding the pockets of their CEO and management executives, and THAT'S IT.

[Psephos]

17. Try a more careful reading - I am talking about emergency treatment

I worked in an emergency room for seven years, and on this subject I know what I'm talking about.

Provision of nonemergency care is a different subject altogether, governed by different laws, and was not the subject of my comments.

It would be more conducive to fruitful discussion in the future if you didn't lead off by calling my opinions total horseshit. Instead, you might say something like, "Excuse me, but I don't agree with that at all, and here's why."

Peace.

[liberalhistorian]

26. My comments hold true

even for emergency treatment. I'm a paralegal; I've done enough research on this, and worked with enough clients who've experienced it, as well as experienced it first-hand and indirectly, to know the truth of that. They charge the uninsured more for emergency treatments, just like for other treatments, and send their collectroll goons after them just as much. Been there, done that.

[reprobate]

19. All hospitals should be publicly owned. Corporate greed should have

nothing to do with medicine.

Last year I had an arterial sonogram which was covered on my insurance. The hospital submitted the bill to my insurance company and was sent the payment. Somehow the hospital never posted it. Within two weeks they sent it in for collection. It was a month of letters and phone calls to the hospital and insurance company before it was corrected and I even had to send a letter from them to the credit agencies so it wouldn't effect my credit rating.

IMO the only way out of our present dilemma is a single payor health insurance system with the government or a pseudo-governmental entity being the insurer of last resort. With one insurer and the entire population of the nation as insured, you are really taking advantage of the principle of insurance, which is to spread the risk across the largest possible pool of insured. Imagine the savings just in prescription drugs we could have this way if the single insurer could negotiate the costs of drugs with the big pharma corps. Just one example: My wife takes Mobic for arthritis. Mobic is still under patent in the US and retails for just under $200 for 60 pills. Canada DOES negotiate with the drug companies so the cost for the same number of pills from there is 78 US dollars. Further, there is a generic available in Canada that is not available here that costs $45 for 100 tablets. And OUR negotiating strength would be much stronger than Canada's.

I'll say it again. Single payer Universal health care can be the way out. Many of the doctors you meet agree. I know mine does.

[sandnsea]

20. Hill-Burton is OVER

Most hospitals paid off their Hill-Burton loans a long time ago because of various federally mandated abortion laws. I haven't seen a Hill-Burton sign in a hospital in years and years. So, no, getting your hospital care at reduced rates is generally not available anymore.

In addition, hospitals are beginning to refuse patients who are not genuine emergencies. They will literally tell you to go to the doctor, never mind if there's no doctor who will see people without cash on the barrel.

It's NOT the 80's anymore. It's a whole new ballgame out there and it's very very scary.

[FlaGranny]

23. We already have an overseer

for health care that is extremely efficient, but grossly underfunded. It's called Medicare.

[depakid]

5. "...are the hospitals going to have to shutdown"

More than a few already have- or they've closed clinics, ER's and trauma centers. There's no way for many of them to keep up with unreimbursed care- even by hiking prices to third party payers (which raises everyone else's premiums, co-pays, deductibles, etc).

Bottom line on America's profoundly dysfunctional healthcare system- pay me some now- or pay me whole lot more later.

[Ilsa]

8. Even Desperate Housewives has a storyline about

a woman needing surgery and being uninsured. HEr ex is going to marry her to get her coverage and then divorce her when it's all taken care of. They know it is fraud, but she would have to sell her car to pay for the surgery.

[Gregorian]

11. I joined the ranks of the uninsured last week.

Hurray! I finally decided the cost of insurance isn't worth it. Fuck em.

But we have money for bombs.

[saigon68]

22. Yes Money for bombs

Good observation

[NVMojo]

12. In Bushworld, healthcare coverage & service is a luxury for the rich

[Deja Q]

13. Was, is, always will be.

Sorry to sound defeatist, but I'm more likely to get a job managing a large corporate bank.

[BeHereNow]

14. What's the question here? Can ANYONE possibly fail to comprehend

"the plan?"
After KATRINA?
For those not following the bouncing ball as
it bounces along to the funeral dirge-
WE are being reduced to third world status.
Is that not yet clear?
Maestro- cue the music AGAIN.

BHN

[bobbieinok]

15. it may be ok now where you live...but what if you're in a car accident

while traveling through an area where ERs, trauma centers, hospitals have been closed?????

[lovuian]

18. What everybody is saying is this is affecting EVERYBODY

Hospitals are closing and everybody isn't getting better care even though they pay more...

and throwing a person in jail for not paying their debts is Debtor prison... it never worked...

is this Charles Dickens world we want to go back too...

if nobody does anything

its going to crash...

as soon as a economic downturn hits like a Depression ...it will shut it down...

[NMMNG]

21. That's what Bushco forces on them

People without insurance have nowhere else to turn. They can't go to a PCP because they don't have the money. Therefore they go without care until their problem is so bad it requires and ER visit, or only seek care when they have an emergency. Then the ER has to provide it insurance or not. Ultimately both parties suffer.

It is a deplorable state of affairs.

[FlaGranny]

24. Exactly, and by the time

it gets to the point of an ER visit, the cost escalates many fold compared to what it should have been.

[NMMNG]

28. Indeed

They won't allow people the healthcare they need for preventive/proactive care, so they are reduced to reactive care, which almost always is far more expensive and involved. Typical shortsightedness of the money-grubbing Republicans.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Same thing is happening here - not just in Florida

ER is where the uninsured get their care.

[AzDar]

27. We have insurance through my Hubby's employer..it costs a LOT

and we still carefully consider whether or not to go to the doctor/hospital, because the goddamned deductibles are so high.
If Bush gets his way, and the tax incentive for employers offering healthcare bennies to their employees is reduced and/or eliminated, EVERYONE (except the wealthy) will be hurting. Taxpayer money for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE...not IRAQ!!!

[tyedyeto]

29. I have health insurance that has a $1000 deductible

I have used my insurance twice in the past 4 years. They are making a fortune off people such as myself. I have it for major medical, basically. I keep on paying the premuims and never use it. I can't afford even annual physicals which will probably cut the cost of treatment if they ever found anything seriously wrong with me.