I'd like one of these Republicans to walk into an emergency room and say they'd like to get a annual check-up, and see how far that gets them.
Are they nasty? Are they stupid? A fascinating question, but irrelevant to the matter at hand. Obama needs to set an example for voters and just cut the obstructionists out of the process. They don't negotiate, they bloviate.

We already have socialized medicine. When people go to the ER and cannot pay their bills, who do you think makes up the difference? The hospitals charge more to insurers and they pass the cost on to the consumers. We all pay for ER "health care" already.

Let's put members of Congress on the ER plan.

I ask, once again, where are the ER workers who have to respond to the uninsured coming to their ERs for routine health care services? I hear nothing from doctors, nurses, administrators, technicians, etc. who provide the free health coverage that all Americans can receive in the ER. We hear from politicians who tell us how the systems works. Where are the people who deliver these services? Why are they not interviewed? They, more than almost anyone else, are the ones most impacted by this ridiculous meme of getting your health care from the ER.

We are so lucky !
I recall cutting an artery tourniquetting it and then going to Mass General . After a brief eight hour wait the physician smilingly scolded me for not having made myself available earlier . His observation being "We don't sew up wounds after six hours m they become to septic" . His poor old mood was not assisted any by my unsporting reminder of where I had been all day .
Plain dumb luck !

It needs to be remembered that when the discussion isn't insurance, they don't think hospitals should treat people for free. And they absolutely HATE the idea that some illegal might have their life saved for free.

So even their "solution" isn't a solution they're willing to accept. Rather, it works because they've compartmentalized their rhetoric so their lack of empathy doesn't know what their lack of reason is up to.

Let's put members of Congress on the ER plan.

Especially the ones who need to get cancer, diabetes or other significant long-term illnesses treated in a fucking emergency room.

Yeah, I always wonder how these people imagine the emergency rooms deals with, say, chemo treatments. Or people like my husband who need Remicade every eight weeks to keep his Crohn's under control. Idiots.

These statements also ignore that many diseases are not treated in an emergency room. As someone who worked in ERs for many years, I can assure Virginia Foxx, Mitch McConnell, and the rest that emergency rooms do not give chemotherapy, do not routinely manage diabetes and hypertension until those diseases are very far along and reach the "emergency" level. Those are just a few examples, there are many, many others.

Anyone who makes such a statement shows they are ignorant about the basic operation of emergency rooms, as well as healthcare in general.

thanks, EL, for the comment. Anyone else with ER experience as a worker? Can I get my ED treated in the ER?

These republican dipshits are irony challenged, too. The only reason that ERs have to render emergency care to all is because of a federal law, EMTALA. If they show up in and ER and they aren't suffering a true emergency, they get turfed, even if they have a chronic condition that is essentially a time bomb.

The EMTALA says that emergency rooms have to stabilize medical emergencies and deliver women who are in active labor. There is no obligation to provide chronic care, care beyond medical stabilization, or preventative and pre-natal care.

Everything is Socialistic in the GOP mind that affects the common man. They are perfectly willing and anxious to give handouts to banks and corporations because afterall because what does it matter if the common people suffer. We don't matter in their version of reality (except as their serfs).

Having had two people I care about die because they didn't do routine medical tests for financial reasons, let me tell you that the "crisis management" style of health care is a bad one.

As someone who has catastrophic insurance with a $10,000 deductible, may I politely tell Virginia Foxx, one of the most reprehensible persons to represent us (well, North Carolina, at any rate) and the rest of her ilk to STFU?

I sliced open my finger a few years ago, right on the knuckle. I tried to stanch the blood myself, but it wouldn't stop bleeding. If it had been on my left hand, I would have considered sewing it myself. However, it was on my right hand, so I went to UrgentCare because there was no way I was going to the ER. I got three stitches (and a tetanus shot). $200. She said to come back to get the stitches taken out, but I didn't. I was going to cut them out myself, but they fell out on their own.

An office visit is $250. If I am sick, I go to a minute clinic rather than my doctor. I don't go to my doctor (whom I love) unless it's absolutely necessary--such as my yearly physical. In other words, I do very little maintenance and mostly repair work. I am one of the lucky ones in that I can afford to live this way--for now.

It's time to tell the Congress people if they really fear socialized medicine, then their own insurance will be taken away from them. They are truly vile.

But it's extremely expensive to treat patients this way,
Why is it so hard to find liberals, columnists or bloggers, who can't seem to make the point that the US spends twice what other countries do which have universal (or its near kin) health care?
How can those countries get the same or better outcomes, and life expectancy while spending so much less? Emergency room care is one such issue.

Read Harold Myerson yesterday or just about any other liberal and you'd think these facts were hidden away somewhere.

I'd also like to say that in the bankruptcy of a chain of mostly inner city hospitals some years back, I was on the Unsecured Creditor's Committee. We spent several meetings planning the orderly shut down of the chain and the first doors to close were the emergency rooms. It's by far the most expensive facility inside the hospital to staff and run and the source of most of the "free care" (read: uncollectible)provided by the hospital.
Ah, good times, good times.

Things that just go together in my humble opinion...ignorant talking points like those of Rep. Fox and other REPUGS and the fact that those interviewing them do NOT call them on that misrepresentation of an answer to the original query! Bill Maher misspoke on his Friday program yesterday when he suggested that there were "media elite" who commented on the difference in tv news today from Cronkite's time...I didn't hear any...and if some did you can be sure they didn't make that a criticism (like Dan Rather blathering on about Cronkite being the instigator of news as it is today...BALDERDASAH!)...although I loved Maher's parting shot about the fact that our overpaid media talkers are in a position to do SOMETHING to take the NEWS back to what it should be...don't hold your breath!

Are there any numbers for insured & uninsured vis a vis their political party (if any)? The rank & file Republican these days falls into three categories:

-- the rich & venal (they're covered, for sure, including some under the Socialist Govt Plans, which, by rights, they should deny themselves since they disapprove of the concept)

-- Joe & Judy Regular who've always been Republican, and always will be Republican, and nothing will ever change that

-- the batshit crazies

I doubt the second & third categories are entirely insured. & even those who are insured, if they've got anything wrong with them, they'd better watch out. A lot of medical-related-bankruptcies happen to those who are insured, after all.

Perhaps Rep. Idiot, er, Foxx, should read the interview Bill Moyers did with former Cigna PR man, Wendell Potter:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html

Better yet, Potter should give Foxx a call.

There are obviously vast numbers of chronic conditions which destroy quality of life and productivity in the individual but do not rise to the level of "emergency room care". Dental, dermal, optical, headache, fatigue, musculoskeletal, digestive, immunological, et cetera et cetera. A subset of these, for example, dental, only rise to the level of emergency care when they become life threatening.

People who deny this and defend the status quo are just evil.

What???? I've been shelling out good money for co-payments when I could have been going to the ER for Crohn's Disease treatment, Pap smears, mammograms, bone density and blood pressure monitoring, flu shots and oral surgery? And all for FREE? I feel a perfect fool.

Maybe those in D.C. who oppose doing something about health care could come down to Wise County, Va. this weekend and tell the 6,000+ people getting free treatment from RAM just how great things already are.

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9015503

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9015476

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9015445

So why are we wasting all those tax dollars on medical benefits for politicians? It's all free anyway; all they would have to do is go to the ER.

Let them be the first to live by what they claim to stand for.

What would happen to the "best health care system" in the world if we ALL suddenly just terminated our health insurance? Apparently, according to REPUGS, we'd all be cared for just as well...I say if you earn under $250K you just quit your insurance and go to the emergency room when you need some attention on a health issue...GIVE THAT A TRY!!!

Classic sociopaths. Would any of those idiots dream of having their primary care be the Emergency Room? But it's fine for anyone else. It's a genetic dysfunction -- lack of the empathy gene.

But it's also short-sighted and narrow-minded even in their own self-interest: (1) as noted above, it costs them when the ER treatment is not paid for; and (2) their families are exposed to the infectious diseases that are not diagnosed because their is no regular care.

What will it take to open up these idiots' minds -- for someone in their family to die of swine flu caught from someone who has no insurance????

Let's admit that they make a real point - we do not let people die who are in need of emergency care; but this policy shifts costs, increases costs and leads to terrible outcomes. This Republican form of "universal care" is really terrible. So Steve has it exactly right when he says that Republicans are endorsing the most inefficient system of socialized medicine ever devised.

It is VERY important to note:

ER healthcare is not free! I don't know exactly how they decide to give up pursuing you, but if you have any money, THEY WILL TAKE IT.

A broken femur that required surgery cost me $46,500 in 2008 dollars. If you work at McDonalds or Wal*Mart, so that you are getting a paycheck but have no insurance, guess what? That broken femur just bankrupted you. As the ER is going to send your bill to a collection agency. Your credit is trashed, your wages may be garnished, you won't be getting any car or home loans for years, etc. That was fun.

It's not like they treat you, see you have no insurance, and then say "OK, you don't have to pay." Oh, and since you don't have an insurance company keeping the hospital honest, expect to pay MUCH more than the guy who got the same treatment in the next bed (who happened to have insurance). The default practice for most hospitals is to charge criminal rates, assuming the insurance company will bargain it down. If you are uninsured, you just get the criminal rate.

If you go to the emergency room without insurance, they will bill you. If you can't pay, they will send it to collections, and you will be hounded for the money forever. It's only "free" once you go bankrupt because you couldn't pay.

One issue I have never seen mentioned in these discussions is the fact that many people routinely lie to their doctors and on medical questionnaires about their health and habits just so there will not be a record of it.

Who wants to admit they smoke if that will deny them treatment for heart disease someday? That college sports injury? No reason your latest job's insurance company needs to know about that. You occasionally take drugs? That could deny you a student loan, best to never mention it. And so on.

People talk about how many Americans have insurance with their employers, and that's great, but who has confidence in their job security these days? It's better to flat out lie and deny, every time a written record of your health is taken.

This of course makes your doctor's job of treating you much more challenging, but information isn't really held in confidence between you and your doctor now, is it.

You want a fun exercise? Google up EMTALA: it's cause célèabre of nativists and jerks.

It also seems to be a common right-wing talking point that EMTALA mandates that the uninsured get free treatment in the ER.

No wonder idiots like Foxx say what she said: it's taken as dogma among right-wingers that the above is true.

The reality seems to be that the law makes it illegal to transfer or turn away a patient based upon their (perceived) inability to pay for emergency care. Violations result in fines to the hospital. It does not seem to be about payment for said care. Once the treatment has been rendered, the hospital can and WILL pursue you for payment.

So while the law is about not letting the uninsured die on the hospital steps, in the right-wing world, it is about providing socialized medicine for the brown-skinned people and illegals via a sneaky, unfunded mandate.

These people live in an alternate reality.

You can't get physical therapy in the Emergency Room either, so if you're hit by a car and break both legs, once your legs are set and the danger of infection has passed, if you can't pay for a rehab hospital, you're out on the street in a wheelchair.

And they'll probably lift you out of that, put you on a bench, and take the wheelchair back, too.

Idiots.

Without actually reading the EMTALA laws (which would be painful), GAO document GAO-01-747 makes it pretty clear that EMTALA has nothing to do with providing free medical care.

So, as usual, right-wing talking points that are taken as gospel, from president to plebe, are complete bullshit. The GAO report makes it clear, in a diplomatic way, that many of the hyperbolic claims about the results of EMTALA are false. To the extent that EMTALA has created any problems, it has been small. And it has provided benefits.

Indeed, the idea behind EMTALA was to spread around the cost of treating those who ultimately *may* be unable to pay; it was not about providing insurance of last resort. The ER is still free to pursue remuneration, and they do so in every case. Previously, private hospitals thought that it was just peachy keen to transfer anyone they thought might have a hard time paying to the nearest public hospital, thus resulting in really shitty conditions there (not to mention putting the lives of people in danger; but hey, they were usually poor brown people, so who cares). Now they are legally obligated to provide emergency care (unless they just eliminate their ER, as I'm sure many have). Although private hospitals still play games with this by making dubious claims about "special care" being needed that they can't provide, apparently.

Thanks to Realist and J Bean for pointing this law out to me: what was only fuzzy before is now much clearer to me.

Perhaps everyone should go to Virginia, where they just held a free 3 day clinic in a field for the uninsured, around 2000 people per day showed up, they could treat about 1600, so had to turn hundreds away, the cases were pitiful, many came in wheelchairs. This is America 2009, I am ashamed, the press from Japan and Germany were there, they do not understand a country in this day and age that does this to their citizens. If any one is interested in reading about this event, it is on Daily Kos also Democratic Underground. The politicians should see the pictures!

st john, I worked at San Francisco General Hospital for 20+ years. And yes, it was frustrating to have the ER filled with people with ringworm, sore throats and abcesses. However, the hospital and UCSF worked out some great alternatives: a surgery abcess clinic on 3E, a walk in pedi clinic that ran until 1 or 2 am. Those alternatives took the pressure off our trauma dedicated ER; providing care more cheaply, efficiently and humanely.
But the reason many people (and myself) work at public hospitals is the fact that we don't do wallet checks, chart checks, or any other kind of check: we take care of everybody. It was hard, it was often a pain, but we went to extraordinary measures to turn no one away. It wasn't perfect, far from it, but I would never work at a private hospital for that reason. I could always tell which new employees weren't going to make it; those who stayed, stayed for years.

I think the main thought that Repubs. in Congress and elsewhere are against anything resembling "universal" care is that they see it as people getting something for nothing. That we will be rewarding the lazy with their hard-earned money.
It is a "I work and I have health insurance, why don't they?" thing. If you point out that many working people can't afford Health ins., I believe they are thinking "Well, they should just get better jobs".
It's the same thinking that causes people to avoid the homeless; the American instinct that poverty is always YOUR FAULT! "Suck it up! Go to school, get a job, stop whining! This is America dammit! Everybody can be rich if they work hard enough! If you don't have health insurance and a nice house, you're just being lazy. Don't expect me to support you welfare queens."

Hopefully not jinxing it, but I can't remember a more troll-free (or even easily-debunked-counter-argument-free) thread here in a while. I guess because there's really nothing one can say about this stuff.

My brother's girlfriend was having severe headaches and balance problems. The emergency room may have admitted her for one day, but even though she fainted on the way out of the hospital, they refused to take her back. Said to just "call this number" for an appointment with a specialist. She left repeated messages on the specialist's answering machine over the next month --- they refused to call back. About six weeks later she died of a brain tumor.

No, everybody does not have health care.

My local hospital just introduced a $50 co-pay due on your visit to the ER. If you don't have it, they'll still treat you, I guess.

When my friend, an ER physician was running for Congress, he used an anecdote to answer that conventional wisdom (which Rep. Heather Wilson actually replied to a questioner once): In the ER, they're geared up to treat someone with a knife sticking out of their heart. They have all the expensive resources they need to treat a wide variety of serious conditions. Sure, they can treat someone with the flu, but, as he put it, "that's like taking a 747 to get across town."

This argument should appeal to supposedly cost-conscious Republicans, but for some reason they never think of it.

If you don't care about other human beings outside of your immediate family (and may not care about them, either, if they are gay or in some way an embarrasment to you), then there is no argument/logical solution that takes into account "the other". A person who is willing to kill other human beings in war or for a crime or for being pregnant out of wedlock(denying abortion) or some other emotional reason is not going to be persuaded by a logical solution that is based on humanity and the care of others. i'm not sure what an approach would be. Most of the opponents of Universal healthcare are probably religious(not spiritual), and yet would deny the very behavior that their religious icons probably advocate in the Holy Scriptures (that includes all, not just christian or jewish).

So, help me out here. How does one engage such emotional heartlessness?

So, help me out here. How does one engage such emotional heartlessness?

I need help with this too. I posted in my local paper comments section last night about this. They review all comments and don't work on weekends. Come Monday I know I will be "crucified". Like st john I really don't know how to engage this. I just don't get it!

Someone should just call on all the un-insured people in the country who have some minor ailment that they would like looked at, but haven't because they don't have insurance, to go to their local emergency room for a consult on the same day. Then let the media know and have them report the situation.

Hopefully some GOP members of Congress will show up at the emergency room on the same day with a real emergency and have to wait five hours just for triage.

The only words to describe the present Republican Party would be elected lobbyists. This health care/insurance reform is highlighting what I always suspected - the Republican Party has long lost its credentials as being truly "conservative".
A truly conservative party would recognize that the economy, both medical and non-medical, has changed greatly in the last fifty years.
A truly conservative party would attempt to ensure that the best of the medical economy of fifty years ago, the dedicated professionalism and personal empathy that helped form the patient-doctor relationship was somehow preserved while seeing that the patient's access to modern medical treatment was also assured.
A truly conservative party would be looking for ways to assist their core constituency, businesses large and small, manufacturing, agricultural or service, in maintaining their profitability while still providing a decent living for their employees and not forcing their employees to make a choice between a pay increase or health care.
That's what a party that really was "conservative" would be doing.

In places like NM, where I live, it's easier to get an appointment at the veterinarian for the cat than it is to get in to see a doctor. Access to health care in rural areas is terrible, especially the pueblos.

The emergency room "argument" is a bit like saying "there's no homeless person in America - anyone can simply commit a crime and go to prison".

see www.geocities.com/Athens/acropolis/1082/myyam.htm

Gregory wrote in 1985 about his involvement in C-Street aka Youth With A Mission

He talks about this groups doing exorcisms, and a girl jumping out of a 3-story window after attempted suicide. DTS = Disciple Training School

**What does this have to do with this thread?

Most of the GOP is involved in C-Street, YWAM.
They don't want universal healthcare.

The site also talks about Moral Government teachings - this will give greater insight into this C-Street, aside from the scandals.

We Can't win as long as these so-called christians have infiltrated the government.

Has anyone ever asked these dodo birds if they only go to a doctor in emergencies, or worse, only take their kids to doctors in emergencies? If the answer is yes, they need to be charged for criminal neglect of a child.

Hospitals are required to provide emergency care, but not all (not even most) chronic or life-threatening conditions qualify as "emergencies."

An emergency is when a patient will suffer catastrophic consequences if s/he is not treated at this very moment. Many conditions--cancer, for example--do not meet this standard. If you have cancer, it may be a catastrophe, but it is not an "emergency" under this definition. You cannot go to the ER and demand chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery for your cancer, because you are not in "imminent" danger of your life. That is, not until the untreated cancer grows, and you actually ARE near death. (Then they will admit you and put you on a morphine drip until you die.)

You won't get the care you need to AVOID that fate, because up until the moment when you are actually dying--at which point, of course, it is too late to treat you--your condition is not an "emergency."

Similarly, a diabetic has no right to be supplied with insulin and other diabetic supplies for daily needs, until s/he is actually in insulin shock, at which time it becomes an emergency and s/he can be rushed to the ER for life-saving (and, of course, extremely expensive) treatment. If the ambulance doesn't get there in time, too bad! They will amputate a limb for you, if otherwise you'll die--a common complication of untreated diabetes--because that's an emergency too!

Uninsured people with serious health issues are basically at the mercy of their states and/or counties, which MAY provide non-emergency care under Medicaid or other local programs. You may not qualify, though; in my state, for example, many poor folks don't qualify for Medicaid, no matter how low their income, unless they are either disabled or have minor children.

If you live in a don't-care-about-the-poor locality, what the GOP is trying to push as "universal" (but emergency-only) healthcare can mean a death-sentence.

We once had a beautiful 2500 Sq Ft garden. It was my plaything experimental type of "Dirty Hands Gardening" love. However, at the time, my wife and I fell through the crack of not having health insurance. My VA hadn't started and she was just starting a new job. While at Costco, she became very short of breath. Rushed her to the ER. All went well, however, as the thousands mounted, we had to sell off that garden in order to pay the bill. Had we not, it would have been liened by the hospital.

However, even with medical insurance, some young folk misuse the ER - A local grocery chain in Portland, OR offers medical to even 20 hour part time employees after 90 days of employment. Not the greatest plan in the sense of complete coverage ala the '60s Blue Shield coverage, but, it beats most. The rub is the insurer does not require a primary care physician, so the young kids think Emmanuel Legacy's ER is their primary care doctor. Bad head cold, go to the ER and such. Great thing I have VA because I do not believe EL's ER would pass out Metformin once a month for my Type II Diabetes.

But, speaking of those sixtyish days of BC-BShield, many of the younger set do not realize what those medical plans presented. Full coverage of medical, eyes, dental, chiropractic and other alternative medical care for both the insuree and dependents. Domestic partners were not covered, though. Those days are gone for the majority of people, today.

All merits of the argument aside, I wish that literate people would avoid the use of the "word" "preventative." The last time I looked, "preventate" is not a verb in English, so there is no need for the extra syllable added to the word "preventive."

I make this point in nearly every discussion I have on this issue: We already have universal coverage in the United States, but unfortunately it's the most stupid and least efficient such system in the world. So when you hear anyone standing in the way of universal coverage, you must conclude that they stand for one of two things:

1. Actually denying emergency room care based on ability to pay, i.e. letting people bleed out and die if they show up without coverage and/or money.

2. Continuing to provide universal coverage the way we do now, with a ridiculously inefficient and unsustainable system that benefits only a small group of investors and industry stakeholders.

I also usually end up having to respond to "I don't want to pay for someone else's coverage" with "That's too bad, because you are already paying for them. As long as you're paying for somebody else, would you rather their treatment be more expensive or less?"

But it doesn't make any sense anyway.
If you have an asthma attack, you can go to the ER to get, uh, emergency treatment-- except, of course, if they take you at all (and some will just have you wait forever), all but public hospitals need only "stabilize" you and then shove you out the door, or transfer you to another hospital (which will transfer you again). And what if you need cancer surgery? ER can't do that. And they can't do chemo, or kidney dialysis. They can't diagnose or treat chronic diseases. They're EMERGENCY ROOMS. Even with the best will in the world, they can't treat most illnesses.

And anyway, you still have to PAY for it. They might treat you for some emergency without charging first, but you'll get billed and if you don't pay, you'll get sued. Sometimes I think that Republicans have never had any access to the real world the rest of us live in.

I agree that we already have national healthcare except that very few of us pay for it. If you're working poor you can get medi-cal or some form of welfare, if you work for some form of government you get insurance, if you're in the military you get insurance, if you're retired you get Medicaid. Who's paying for all of it? Me! The taxpayer who works in private industry and makes a decent wage plus good benefits....why do I make that? Because I choose to belong to a union which is very rare these days in the private sector. We can thank Ronald Reagan and all those Republican voters for the mess we're in.... He made it cool to believe we are all "rugged individualists" and we didn't need those unions and pesky regulations. My benefits cost $18,000.00 per year!! I'm subsidizing all the low wage non-union employers out there! I'm also subsidizing all the public sector employees also....I can't afford it anymore, it's time everyone started paying their fair share'

I agree that we already have national healthcare except that very few of us pay for it. If you're working poor you can get medi-cal or some form of welfare, if you work for some form of government you get insurance, if you're in the military you get insurance, if you're retired you get Medicaid. Who's paying for all of it? Me! The taxpayer who works in private industry and makes a decent wage plus good benefits....why do I make that? Because I choose to belong to a union which is very rare these days in the private sector. We can thank Ronald Reagan and all those Republican voters for the mess we're in.... He made it cool to believe we are all "rugged individualists" and we didn't need those unions and pesky regulations. My benefits cost $18,000.00 per year!! I'm subsidizing all the low wage non-union employers out there! I'm also subsidizing all the public sector employees also....I can't afford it anymore, it's time everyone started paying their fair share'

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