The Republican health care “plan” described in detail in Bloomberg:
Shirley Johnson gets her medical care at Palmetto Health Baptist hospital’s emergency room in Columbia, South Carolina. She goes when her back gives out or when a benign tumor near her ribcage swells and throbs. She goes for headaches, heartburn, and spider bites, leaving the hospital a sheaf of unpaid bills.
“I owe so much money,” said Johnson. “The last time I went just for my toe. It cost $1,000.”
Enlarge image South Carolina Governor Nikki HaleyJohnson, as a 49-year-old with no dependents, isn’t eligible for Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor, which covers about 20 percent of the state’s residents. And in two years, when President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul allows the expansion of Medicaid to cover 17 million more Americans, she may still be left behind.
Governor Nikki Haley, a Tea Party-backed Republican, was among the first state leaders to oppose expanding Medicaid after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can’t make states do so. Caught between poverty and pressure to curb government’s power, South Carolina illustrates the forces at play in the nation’s capitals amid the broadest changes to the health care system since 1965.
It’s important to realize that THIS is the Republican health care plan. Repeal Obamacare, and simply watch hospitals go belly up as people without insurance and no means to pay use the emergency room as their primary care physician.
Read the whole thing.
Davis X. Machina
The next step is EMTALA repeal. No one on the GOP varsity is talking it up, but if you listen hard you can hear it down the JV end of the team bus.
Human suffering, and wasted money v. Ms. Haley’s shot at the Senate, or a cabinet post, or the ticket in ’16? That’s an easy choice.
Denny
John,
You missed the obvious solution:
The Rethuglicans will just repeal that pesky law that says that Emergency rooms have to treat you regardless of your ability to pay, thereby relieving hospitals of that little cost problem and as a bonus it will make those pesky poors get over their problem with dying quickly.
It’s a win-win…..
Todd
How else do you think that the horrible costs of maintaining compliance with EMTALA are going to be used as a basis for its repeal? duh?!?
General Stuck
Just read this also too, on the health care subject
I thought the non commerce grounds for not upholding the ACA was not a big deal. But always thought the wingers would find a way to screw around with the ACA to make it somewhat unworkable. And in particular the limit put of the feds to force states to use fed money for medicaid actually be used for that purpose.
The nutters take the cue in states with gooper governors, like Maine, and others, are not waiting until 2014 to send the sick and poor to the soylent factory. The ruling by the supreme’s I think has some very broad implications for any money the feds give states for about any reason to meet a federal mandate.
eric
Maybe the hospitals will file some sort of due process claim against the governor given that they are “people” under the law. :)
If i had to pick the single most disturbing trend in our current politics I would cite the growing proclivity of ring wing apologists and hacks to refer to people suffering as “leeches” or “moochers” for looking to the government for assistance. The implicit assumptions being (1) if you are in financial trouble you are lazy and/or stupid; (2) if you are in financial trouble you deserve it; and (3) you are black.
SteveM
Ultimately, I assume the GOP health care plan will be the Ron Paul health care plan — they’ll gradually get us to see letting poor people sicken and die untreated as the only “rational” choice, because we certainly can’t afford to let “freeloaders” continue to get charity care. (Besides, it’s only “those” people who need to go begging for medical care.) Eventually, they hope to get the swing voters to accept this notion — and then the number of people covered by health insurance can just drop and drop, because the “good” people won’t have to cover the “bad” people anymore.
japa21
This is a concept people just don’t get. People who can’t afford insurance don’t see a doctor on a regular basis to avoid problems. They get sicker or just have problems that create an inability to function. They go to the ER. The ER has to at least, by law, make sure they are not in a life threatening situation. This costs money.
Sure the hospital can bill them, but, as the saying goes, you can’ get blood froma turnip. The hospital has to make up the cost elsewhere, which they do by charging higher amounts which are paid by the rest of us.
But it goes beyond that. Unmentioned frequently are the actual doctors at the hospital who also bill for their services. For a common ER visit, this would include the ER doc, a radiologist, a pathologist and possibly an anesthesiologist.
These physicians charge an absurd amount for their srvices, mainly because they really only get reimbursed about 50% of their charges by insurance companies and nothing by about 30% of their patients.
When everybody has insurance all these charges get reduced. These docs can make the same income charging about 30% less than they currently do, and hospitals can also reduce their charges. Insurance premiums end up going down accordingly.
General Stuck
@General Stuck:
This bullshit was signed off on by both Breyer and Kagan, I would guess as some kind of give and take with Roberts if he let the ACA pass the SCOTUS test. It is nothing short of elevating the 10th amendment that Roberts and his ilk love so much. State’s rights. They can’t legally secede as a verb, but now can chip away at federal control with “take the money and run”
Culture of Truth
We can have a smart health care policy, or a dumb one that feels good. And yes, while to BJers it may feel good to help people, I assure you to others it feels good to say, ‘you didn’t buy insurance, you didn’t stay healthy, you didn’t save enough money, tough luck.’
the Conster
Listening this morning to Gov. Patrick discuss the state budget he signed yesterday, he mentioned that because of the exchanges (Mass. Connect) set up under RomneyCare, the rise in premiums has drastically slowed and has saved the state quite a bit of money already. I know that’s not as good as FREEDOM! though.
cathyx
Well, it doesn’t help the cause when someone thinks they need to see a doctor for a headache, spider bite or heartburn. This is part of why republicans are opposed to this.
NR
If we weren’t spending 20% of our health care dollars on profits for the big insurance companies, we would have more money to treat people like this. But that ship has sailed, thanks to you guys.
feebog
You know, we throw the term “Sociopath” around here pretty lightly. But what do you call someone like Nikki Haley or Rick Scott or Rick Perry who are willing to cut off thousands residents in THEIR OWN STATE from any kind of health care just to keep up a political battle they have already lost. I guess evil motherfuckers would work as well.
eric
@NR: “you guys”? help me out, who is “you guys?”
General Stuck
@cathyx: @NR:
I see a bright future for youze two.
SatanicPanic
@Davis X. Machina: You would think even total idiots could imagine this scenario- go to the beach, have a heartattack, no one can find your insurance card because it’s in your wallet, which is locked in your car, now you die. Great plan Republicans!
Davis X. Machina
@SatanicPanic: Collateral damage in the Struggle for Freedom™.
Death in a noble cause has always been celebrated by poets and such.
Cassidy
The notion of “smart policy” vs. “dumb and feel good” you brought up is idiotic. A “smart” healthcare policy begins with preventative medicine for everyone to include affordable doctor visits so that the system isn’t overly burdened by advanced conditions that could easily have been found and treated for significantly less. So, if you want “smart” policy, then you support gov’t sponsored health care.
General Stuck
@SatanicPanic:
It’s the stuff of every wingnut’s fantasy. To be Caesar in the Coliseum giving a thumbs down to some unfortunate soul.
BGinCHI
To state the obvious: if Perry and the other GOP Governors cut off aid to a large number of the uninsured and this starts to erode an already-lousy state healthcare system, which then hurts the state economy, it has to hit them at the ballot box.
Otherwise all we can assume is that Texas wants it this way. And if so, fuck them.
In order to form a more perfect union, we may have to get rid of some people too stupid to participate.
jacy
@cathyx:
Of course the headache could be a symptom of a brain tumor, the spider bite can cause the amputation of a limb, or the heartburn could be the first sign of a heart attack. Why can’t those people just die quietly in the streets, or better yet, at home (if they have one) so we don’t have to pay maintenance workers to clean up all the unsightly corpses?
Ash Can
You think this is bad? HA! Florida’s Rick Scott and his henchmen make Nikki Haley look like a rank amateur:
Worst TB Outbreak in 20 Years Kept Secret
(h/t a commenter at LGF)
scav
Well, @cathyx: Odd thing about the headache I never checked up on was it being a brain tumor.
cathyx
@General Stuck: I know that most people don’t go to doctors for frivolous things like this woman. But when this is highlighted in Bloomberg, then that just gives more fodder for the republicans to oppose expanding medicaid.
Linda Featheringill
@eric: #5
Two out of those three apply even if you’re not black, although it might be even harder on me if I had more melanin in my skin. I don’t know.
gene108
From the article.
(1) The first block quote is really about keeping people so frustrated that they feel government can’t do anything so (a) they don’t vote or (b) they vote Republican, because Republicans will keep the gays from marrying.
(2) The second block quote is whether or not Democrats can connect with these people that there is something government can do for them and that they have a plan. Obamacare, I think, in a few years will get folks like this into the Democratic column, because it actually addresses their problems.
It’s why Republicans were so scared about “Hillarycare” and are so adamant about screwing with Obamacare; they know that once folks get help from the government, there philosophy of “government is the problem” dies its inevitable death.
I really do wonder, if state and local Democratic parties in red, red states like South Carolina have the ability to make Medicaid expansion an issue. I doubt it, but I can hope.
eric
@Linda Featheringill: I should have said “and/or” my bad.
Cassidy
Well, there are a lot of all around wusses out there who think thye need to see a doctor for every little thing. Thatis true, but here are some things I see frequently at the hospital I work at:
Headaches can be a sign/ symptom of many things to include high blood pressure.
The Brown Recluse. If you don’t see a doctor for that, you deserve the large divot that forms in your body due to necrosis.
Heart burn is frequently mistaken for MI’s in the elderly. Heartburn, in some cases, really hurts. I know it does for me. I happen to kow better, being a medical person and all, but can you really blame an older person for being scared that their chest is hurting?
eric
@gene108: The “red dogs” as i like to calls ’em, are just as likely to side against the expansion as for it.
Culture of Truth
Thanks for sharing that. However idiotic you may feel it is, I repeat, I assure you there are people who would rather have a dumb policy than a smart one, because it feels good to them. A few of them even hold high office in this country.
cathyx
@jacy: Of course these things could be symptoms of something big. But if everyone thought this way and saw doctors for them, then our healthcare system would be truly overrun.
Bloomberg could have highlighted a person who has no insurance and had legitimate reasons to hit the emergency room where the reader would have no reason to say they were undeserving of treatment.
Linda Featheringill
@cathyx: #11
Especially the spider bite: You don’t live in Dixie, do you?
MoXmas
It’d be nice to think of all the states that DO implement the Medicaid expansion as having a competitive advantage over the states that don’t. Start your business here, and your employees have 1) health care; 2) stay healthier and miss less work.
Increased productivity = more profit.
SatanicPanic
@Davis X. Machina: If they ever repeal that law I’m going to have to get a health insurance # bracelet like those poor elderly Netherlands people who are trying not to get euthanized just in case I ever have an accident and don’t have the foresight to be carrying my wallet. Glad Michelle Bachmann told me about them. And even more glad she wants us to be like them.
Cassidy
@Culture of Truth: Has nothing to do with feelings, for me anyway. Preventative care is always less expensive in the long run. There is a reason that employers and healthcare agencies have institued prev med programs: it saves them money.
Culture of Truth
A spider bite! Those give you super strength!
We need more job-creating spidermen but liberals just want everyone equal!
Phylllis
Hospital CEO’s in SC are already pushing back on Haley regarding her Medicaid stance.
I can’t tell if this is snark or what. Heart attacks in women can present as heartburn; headaches are a symptom of brain tumors. And here’s hoping you don’t ever get bitten by a Brown Recluse.
ETA: Beaten by Jacy.
Culture of Truth
Why do you think these Governors oppose it, then?
General Stuck
@cathyx:
First of all, this sort of thing is not what concerns republicans. They want you, or the poor to die, for both entertainment and one less schmuck in the jungle to compete against. Secondly, yer an idiot.
I don’t blame anyone for using an ER as primary care, that they have been denied by society, and that should be a right and not a privilege. As I don’t blame people for stealing a loaf of bread cause they are hungry and can’t afford to pay for it. I realize we have laws and shit, and a rarified concept of what could be deemed an appropriate visit to the ER, for the benefit of tax payers who mostly pick up that tab for indigent care. But none of that would ever give me pause to judge the sick and poor, doing what they have to to physically survive in the richest motherfucking country the world has ever known.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
Hmm, the plot of “The Incredibles” in a nutshell?
Davis X. Machina
@SatanicPanic: We would honor your noble sacrifice. Dulce et decorum est prō
patriāpecuniā morī.Cassidy
@Culture of Truth: That’s already been stated; those people have a vested interest in making sure gov’t doesn’t work.
bemused
I read about the enormous amount of uncompensated care hospitals have been dealing with but I’m not reading what kind of pressure they are putting on legislators.
Phylllis
@cathyx:
Fix’t that fer ya.
jacy
@Linda Featheringill:
After Katrina I was bitten by a brown recluse — still have the four inch scar on my calf from the two months it took to get it under control without surgery, just wound debridement and antibiotics.
As for the headache — earlier this year I began to have persistent headaches that turned out to be a dangerous increase in spinal fluid volume that could have killed me if left untreated. (And I was terrified at the time it was a brain tumor.)
One person’s “frivolous complaint” is another person’s death sentence.
gene108
@eric:
They side against it because their constituents react negatively to associations with Obama-Pelosi-Reed.
At some level, someone in the Democratic Party at the national level has to start hammering the benefits of Obamacare and then give the state and local party the tools to use to continue hammering it.
There needs to be a media blitz to have folks in South Carolina, for example, positively associate benefits with Obamacare and Democrats.
One candidate blowing in the wind doesn’t change the discourse, which is needed for them to start standing up for Obamacare.
Culture of Truth
@Cassidy: It’s a vested interest in the sense that is their ideology. But I would suggest there is an emotional/moral component that pulls them and voters who support them away from universal coverage to a punitive policy, odd as that may seem, polic choices, that aside from being cruel, are ultimately stupid and self destructive.
El Cid
@cathyx:
How would I know the difference between needing to see a doctor for a spider bite which may cause severe local damage — and I’ve known people who had such — and not?
Just Wikipedia it and hope?
Ash Can
Speak of the devil: Strategic Health Care, a health care lobbying group, is sponsoring a “white trash” themed get-together in DC for health care industry movers and shakers, lobbyists, and pols.
Imagine that — making fun of the very people getting pounded by GOP health “plans.”
No, I am NOT making this up. And do click on that link — the invitation has to be seen to be believed.
gex
@Denny: I love to challenge anyone who advocates that with this:
Your kid has a life threatening accident and is taken to the nearest emergency room. Do you really want to HAVE to prove to them that you can pay for an unknown, unspecified amount of health care that is about to occur before they take action? Do you really?
Now do you know that simply carrying around a health insurance card does not prove that you can pay for an unknown, unspecified amount of health care?
How would you prove it as the seconds and life blood drips away?
Chris
@Ash Can:
You know, I really, truly loathe conservatives. Obvious fact is obvious, but it hits me again every time something like this happens.
gex
@japa21: This. What you have been seeing these last few days, and is a lovely commentary on the intelligence of the American people is:
People are complaining that Obama is going to make uninsured people pay something for the costs of their emergency room health care that the rest of us ALREADY pay for. They are literally pissed off that free loaders are being asked to pay and that they are being forced to not take insurance carrying Americans’ subsidies.
Cluttered Mind
@cathyx: In most of the civilized world you can see a doctor at any time for any reason. Somehow, those countries haven’t collapsed yet.
gex
@cathyx: Perhaps, and this is just a thought, the problem was with the way the media didn’t present context or counter points and was not a flaw of someone seeking medical attention.
There is a difference between someone who goes to a doctor for lots of little things to check them and someone who goes demanding antibiotics or already diagnosing themselves. The latter ARE problems.
The thing about common sense is, YOUR common sense isn’t the same as everyone else’s.
Culture of Truth
Ultimately it does come down to – is some basic health care the right of citizen, or isn’t it?
Even more fundamental, what do we owe each other, as fellow citizens? What is the purpose of the nation-state? Protection of property? Or something more?
SatanicPanic
@General Stuck: I didn’t want to go there, but can’t these fools even imagine some thug stabbing them and taking their wallet? This is a rhetorical question, because I’m sure they imagine it all the time. How they can avoid connecting that to what happens after is what drives me nuts.
cathyx
Jump on my case all you want, my point is that you can go into any ER and find many people there who have no insurance and have cause for being in the emergency room that wouldn’t raise the ire of republicans like the example given above does.
kay
It’s probably worth knowing that 5 states
and DC took the expansion option early.
The states are CA, CT, MN, NJ and WA.
California will of course be the big test case, because it’s more than a million eligible people.
They’ve brought in 400k already, because they didn’t want to hit providers all at once.
Opponents of this law get much, much more media coverage than those working to impliment it.
I think that’s understandable, Tea Party governors like Perry and Haley are media-made celebrities, but I did want to give credit to those governors who simply do their jobs.
Haley is incompetent, basically, as far as I can tell. She may have chosen the Tea Party because one doesn’t have to do any actual work when the answer to every problem is “no”.
gex
@cathyx: So do we now all just call you to see if it is actionable or not? I mean, I assume those people are exercising their best judgement, even though it differs from yours.
Do you think maybe they really think there might be a problem? I’m curious.
Darkrose
@cathyx: So we should fall in line with the idea that there are the “deserving” poor and everyone else?
gex
@Phylllis: Beaten by everyone who thinks that a person experiencing symptoms has a better bead on what’s happening than Bill Frist watching on TV or a blogger on the Internet who read an article.
@cathyx: Seriously. Why is the anger not at the journalist and the editor for doing what our MSM does, which is to mainstream ridiculous Republican lies instead of at people who are worried about their health, do something about it, and then have the misfortune to be featured in an article you read?
Mike R.
It could portend some major population shifts if some states provide for their citizens while others are basically casting theirs to the scrap heap or it may have the effect that many of us would like to see which would be open rebellion at the ballot box. Right now we may have richer and poorer states but most have basic supports for the needy. By failing to adopt the provisions of Obamacare (respectfully used) those states will actually become second tier states who are practicing a form of domestic abuse against their citizens. I’m not sure that would end well for the anti-humans who currently govern those states.
gex
@gex: I, for one, DEMAND a countertop inspection of these people at once for making us all look bad in front of Republicans.
gex
@Mike R.: So the Rust Belt to Sun Belt migration is about to flip?
Mino
@Davis X. Machina: Yep. My sister, who gets her political info from circulating e-mails, is already saying it.
Mino
Just please tell me that federal civil servants who work in Texas will have to pay more for their health insurance, too, since they will be financing the 27% of our population who get their primary care at the emergency room.
Jebediah
@cathyx:
Which makes you wonder why that was the example chosen.
Mino
And don’t forget, there is cross contamination. All those public health concerns like TB and Whooping Cough and measles, etc., won’t be checking a wallet for social status.
kay
@cathyx:
Part of the goal of universal coverage is to get people a regular provider.
Her regular provider (which she doesn’t have) would know her history, so she could tell her “you don’t have a history of heart problems, so just take an antacid” or whatever, if she had a regular provider to call.
Health care people call what this women is getting “fragmented care”. It’s expensive AND it sucks.
She might not have to go to the doctor so much if she had A doctor:)
cathyx
@kay: That’s exactly right. Her doctor would know if her problems could be serious or not. I’m all for public healthcare for everyone, and I’m willing to pay for it.
PurpleGirl
@scav: Or a cerebral aneurysm.
RP
But that’s the point — we need to reform the healthcare system in part to take the types of patients you’re complaining about out of hospital ERs. You should be able to see a regular doctor if you’re concerned about a headache so that the doctor can tell you not to worry. Forcing people to go to the emergency room for this type of thing is incredibly inefficient and bad for the system as a whole.
bemused
@Mino:
You mean your sister thinks it’s fine for sick, uninsured people to be turned away at the emergency room entrance?
kay
@cathyx:
Right. I’m sure you do that with your daughter. Call if something is weird in terms of THAT particular kid, and the child’s doctor tells you to come in ( or not) based on THAT kid, who has a medical history, generally healthy or maybe somewhat fragile for one reason or another.
jibeaux
Yglesias is reporting something I haven’t seen elsewhere: that Congress cut funding for hospitals serving a disproportionate number of uninsured, on the logic that soon there won’t be very many uninsured. So foregoing the Medicaid expansion will be combined with losing, in Texas, almost a BILLION dollars a year in existing funding they get now.
Phylllis
@gex: I type slow, I from the south.
PurpleGirl
@cathyx: Maybe what we need nationally is to increase the number of local community clinics where people can go without an appointment. You know a drop-in clinic, not specifically an ER-type place.
Phylllis
@gex: I type slowly, I’m from the south.
PurpleGirl
@cathyx: Maybe what we need nationally is to increase the number of local community clinics where people can go without an appointment. You know a drop-in clinic, not specifically an ER-type place.
rikyrah
Alan Grayson was right about the GOP.
all the way.
Davis X. Machina
@jibeaux:
Freedom™ isn’t free.
(Freedom™ and Free™ are registered trademarks of the Republican National Committee. Used with permission. All rights reserved.)
Triassic Sands
I think it is important to dispel the notion that Medicaid is a program to provide health insurance to a state’s poor. The problem with that statement is that it implies that being poor is a sufficient qualification to receive Medicaid.
The restrictions on eligibility often eliminate any single person who is merely poor — no matter how poor they are. In truth, Medicaid is a joint state-federal health insurance program for a severely limited group of a state’s poor residents. Being disabled helps, but poor people have enough problems without being disabled.
The PPACA opens up — or would have if the Supreme Court hadn’t made participation voluntary — Medicaid to a much more representative population of the poor. Since individual states have a say in setting up their own Medicaid programs, it is difficult to make blanket statements that apply to all states’s programs.
Across the US, people mistakenly believe that anyone can get free “health care” by going to an emergency room. That isn’t true. Neither is it true that if you are poor, even really poor, you will be eligible for Medicaid. Governors and state legislatures, especially Right Wingers, have made eligibility so restricted that calling Medicaid “health insurance for the poor” is highly misleading. True, if you aren’t poor you won’t qualify, but even if you are, if you’re single and not disabled, no matter how poor you are, the cards are stacked against you.
Davis X. Machina
@jibeaux:
Freedom™ isn’t free.
(Freedom™ and Free™ are registered trademarks of the Republican National Committee. Used with permission. All rights reserved.)
Wazmo
@Culture of Truth: Simple: to keep their jobs-lord knows how’d they actually could compete in the private sector.
Cris (without an H)
No, stupid. That’s what WebMD is for.
Cris (without an H)
No, stupid. That’s what WebMD is for.
Mino
@bemused: You betcha. And she has a grandaughter with spinal scoliosis who has the bright future of being a healthcare pauper and disabled in great pain. She claims to love this kid. Some imagination she has, doncha think.
She lost her mind over long hair in the 60’s.
Svensker
@El Cid:
Having been in the hospital for a spider bite after it turned out the spider’s fangs were infected with flesh-eating bacteria, let me tell you, spider bite can be vicious. Fortunately for me I recognized the symptoms and insisted on going to an infectious disease specialist AND I had good insurance at the time. One week in the hospital on massive antibiotics, 2 weeks at home with a drip hookup and a daily nurse visit. But it WAS just a spider bite.
El Cid
@gex: If you were a real American, you would have saved up enough cash and kept it on you at all times so that you could pay for your child’s medical care out of pocket.
Somewhere around $1 – $2 million would be a good number.
bemused
@Mino:
Conservatives are incapable of connecting the dots.
When I hear of people wanting to repeal EMTALA, I immediately imagine uninsured folks crying, maybe with babies in their arms, at the emergency room door begging for help and no one will let them in while the insured with an emergency just walk in. I guess those possibilities never occur to the “um-imaginative” or that something like that could happen to one of their loved ones.
Patricia Kayden
Well, the battle lines are pretty clear. Vote for Repubs and get the ACA repealed, or vote for Dems and keep the ACA. Seems like people in the red states would rather vote against their healthcare interests than vote for the Kenyan, Socialist, Communist, Blah man. If Repub governors were catching hell for threatening not to implement the ACA in their states, they would change their tune.
scav
@PurpleGirl: Ok, in theory, but mine wasn’t theoretical, it was an actual acoustic neuoma and I was in ICU for three months and three operations and I’d ignored the headache long enough that they called me back to hospital as soon as they saw the test results.
Cris (without an H)
And nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
yopd1
While, true…Your also not including the fact that the premiums of everyone else goes up by about $1000 a year as of 4-5 years ago in order for the hospitals to cover the costs they can’t recover from those who can’t pay their bills.
El Cid
@bemused: And if that happened, they’d be outraged, and wonder why hadn’t anybody ever passed a law that they have to take care of the emergency first before demanding proof of insurance…
bemused
@El Cid:
Yes, and blame it on Democrats. They won’t believe that the GOP is serious about cutting/killing SS/Medicare/Medicaid or any policy that benefits them so when bad shit actually happens, it must be entirely the fault of Democrats.
tiptree
@Culture of Truth:
Shorter Culture of Truth: can’t afford expensive insurance? Have pre-existing conditions? Fuck you!
PurpleGirl
@scav: Maybe I should of mentioned that when my brother was 35 he suffered a cerebral anuerysm. It presented as a sudden, intense and blinding headache. Other names for it are cerebral vascular accident or a stroke. Relevant point being it’s physical presentation was a headache.
dww44
@kay: Not only is our system of healthcare fragmented, it’s what I and a way conservative friend of mine call “compartmentalized” to such a degree that within the last year both she and I have had experiences with ER’s (cause there was nothing else open) and the “doc in the box” places and into the hospital from there. So many different physicians and medical professionals were dispensing care that even we got confused.
In my case it was a possible spider bite, whose treatment included a round of steroids that resulted in a very severe attack of diverticulitis whose antibiotic treatment turned out be too strong for my body (caused terrific head aches and very elevated BP) and a stay in the hospital to take the meds via IV, as per recommendation of primary care physician. I have a whole basket full of meds, all prescribed, that I had to pass on to take the new ones. Until this hospital stay, I had not been in a hospital ever, except for when my now 40 year old daughter was born.
So, even if one has good health insurance, all bets are off if one has a medical emergency at night, or on the weekends, or on a holiday. Nothing can take the place of a doctor or nurse practitioner, or physician’s assisitant who is familiar with one’s medical history. In these parts, when one is in hospital one is treated by a hospitalist, because doctors lose too much time, i.e. revenue, by visiting their patients in the hospital. So, in these parts, hospitalists are generally young and apparently not educated in American medical schools. Mine walked around with a smart phone and my charts and didn’t listen to me when I told him my BP was NOT elevated when I hit the ER with the severe stomach pain.
So a simpler and better system of delivering medical care in this country is to be desired and the ACA has the potential of starting us down that road. In their secret places, most GOP’ers know that. It’s just now imprinted in their DNA to be anti any policy legislated by Democrats and doubly so if it was signed by the first Black President. There are no moderates with spine left in that party.
ruemara
@cathyx: Dear, if you don’t see the doctor for such frivolous items, you may wind up a statistic of people who failed to see the doctor at the first possible signs of symptoms until he’s called to confirm past medical history by the ME.
mclaren
And the difference between Republican and Democratic health care plans is…?
A phase shift.
Republicans want Americans to lose access to health care now, Democrats want Americans to lose access to health care a few years down the road when health insurance premiums rise so high that employers stop paying for them and the average citizen can no longer afford ’em.
Republican health care plan = [Democratic health care plan + (6 to 10 years of ruinous cost increases)]
Just like foreign policy: Republican foreign policy invade-other-countries-and-stay-forever = [Democratic foreign policy + (6 to 10 years of ruinous war in Afghanistan)]
Baud
@mclaren:
Bullshit.
mclaren
@Baud:
I bow before the devastating logic and irrefutable facts of your argument.
Southern Beale
…and simply watch hospitals go belly up as people without insurance and no means to pay use the emergency room as their primary care physician.
Don’t be ridiculous. They’ll repeal the law that mandates hospitals treat all comers, regardless of ability to pay.
Alan Grayson told us what the Republican health care plan is for these people: die.