So World have your Say (BBC program) got snowed

[nadinbrzezinski]

They went to St Francis in Indianapolis to do a program on our very much broken health care. They got snowed. I wish we had that little broken health care system and not the major fuck up we have... So sent them this letter, and hopefully they will take the advise....

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How can anybody say that the small group (43 million last time I checked, it is higher now) of Americans is driving the cost due to lack of insurance? How can that large of a percentage be characterized as a small group?

There is more, you are being snowed on. People are denied medical care in this country regularly. By law ERs cannot turn people away, but they do.

I was a Medic in Tijuana for ten years. The patients who feared going to hospital due to cost were American patients. A few we transported to American hospitals since the cost of an international evacuation was beyond the pail. We at times had to fight ER personnel when the patient did not have either a credit card or insurance. By the way we were a charity hospital too, and our billing dept. was a donation box.

There is more, the billing department goes ahead of medical care in this country.

When my dad broke his hip in San Diego the second person he saw in the ER was not the nurse or the medical techs, but the billing department. We are blessed my parents could afford it, they had no insurance...the insurance was cancelled after his open heart surgery...that was an American company. They were visiting from Mexico. I can even tell you the worry that they could afford it, and also how much it ran.

So to hear people say that this system is not broken, or just a little broken, is well...bizarre.

We have the military retiree system. That should be the model, a single payor with no private insurance component, or one that only covers private rooms.

I recommend you contact both remote area medical, running clinics in the United States and the National Association of Free Clinics to get a truer picture of the millions who don't have insurance in this country. You got snowed, in a major way.

Sincerely,

Nadin xxxx

[Randomthought]

1. wrong city

the BBC went to Indianapolis.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Thanks for the edit

I was literally screaming at the radio

[SheilaT]

3. All the emergency room has to do

for a patient without insurance is to stabilize him or her. Which can be pretty minimal, depending on just what the person went to the ER for. That often means the patient gets a broken bone set, a wound stitched, maybe an x-ray or some other scan just to make sure there's not something else obviously wrong. They do just the basic needed to stabilize the patient -- meaning not getting any worse -- and then can release them.

It's the way it works when there's no universal health care and lots of hospitals are profit-making businesses.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Oh trust me I know

But having people say, one of the nuns iirc, say that a very small minority was uninsured was like jarring. Yes, I was screaming at my radio.

Oh and the cost of setting that bone is astronomical...and should not be that way.

[AngryOldDem]

5. Just curious...

Were they taking calls? Typically World Have Your Say is very open to other opinions.

Frankly, they should have gone to a hospital like Methodist or Wishard in Indy to get a better feel for the state of health care in the U.S. And with all the people either still in the hospital or facing extensive rehabilitation since the state fair stage collapse, it would have been a perfect angle to discuss health care.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yes they were

And I have a few other places...truthfully they should have gone to a for profit...I hope they take advise and call free clinics.