What bullshit.
As a pediatrician, and as a doctor who has treated many people who use the emergency room as their primary care due to lack of funds to pay for true medical continuity, this has got to be the most asinine, head-up-the-ass notion I've ever seen.
Yes, anyone and everyone can go to an emergency room for care. You won't be turned away, and you don't even have to pay. However, this does not make you "insured, but with an alternate source of payment." What it means is that the hospital pays for the few hours that you're in the emergency room---but that's all. It means is that you may get one dose of a medicine in the ER, but you will not finish the treatment course because you can't pay for the drugs at a pharmacy once you leave the ER. It means that you will not have one doctor as your primary doctor, thus you will never have one health care provider who knows your full health history--knowledge that is crucial to provide adequate healthcare. It means that you won't have any doctor following up with how you're doing, because that is not what will be done should you try to follow up in the ER. Finally, it means that you will clog up emergency rooms with general, run-of-the-mill non-problems, detracting the staff from dealing with true emergencies (I can't tell you how many runny noses and constipated kids I've seen in the ER over the last three years).
The sad thing is that this is already the case---walk into any ER in the United States and you'll see this in action. But what in God's name does it do to label uninsured people using ER as primary care as "without payment" or "paid for by hospital" instead of plain old "uninsured???" It will amount to the same number of people with the same crippling problem--just a different name.
This "solution" is yet another example of a lack of knowledge about the true situation, and a lack of caring for the people involved.
As a pediatrician, and as a doctor who has treated many people who use the emergency room as their primary care due to lack of funds to pay for true medical continuity, this has got to be the most asinine, head-up-the-ass notion I've ever seen.
Yes, anyone and everyone can go to an emergency room for care. You won't be turned away, and you don't even have to pay. However, this does not make you "insured, but with an alternate source of payment." What it means is that the hospital pays for the few hours that you're in the emergency room---but that's all. It means is that you may get one dose of a medicine in the ER, but you will not finish the treatment course because you can't pay for the drugs at a pharmacy once you leave the ER. It means that you will not have one doctor as your primary doctor, thus you will never have one health care provider who knows your full health history--knowledge that is crucial to provide adequate healthcare. It means that you won't have any doctor following up with how you're doing, because that is not what will be done should you try to follow up in the ER. Finally, it means that you will clog up emergency rooms with general, run-of-the-mill non-problems, detracting the staff from dealing with true emergencies (I can't tell you how many runny noses and constipated kids I've seen in the ER over the last three years).
The sad thing is that this is already the case---walk into any ER in the United States and you'll see this in action. But what in God's name does it do to label uninsured people using ER as primary care as "without payment" or "paid for by hospital" instead of plain old "uninsured???" It will amount to the same number of people with the same crippling problem--just a different name.
This "solution" is yet another example of a lack of knowledge about the true situation, and a lack of caring for the people involved.
People don't bother to learn what universal healthcare plans are being offered; they simply think "universal" means that everyone will have to have the exact same coverage and that the government will be too involved in their treatment in terms of what they'll be allowed to receive and what they won't. Of course, the Right, fails to remember they've been trying to do this to women for years.
