The Emergency Room Scenario as Politics

September 28, 2006 Uncategorized

Emergency Rooms are overburdened. The news angle this time is that our ERs wouldn’t be able to handle a crisis such as a terrorist attack or that old fake out fear the ‘bird flu’ and something must be done. Congress wants to get involved, thereby proving that a.) no good will come from this and b.) someone spots an opportunity to criticize America’s health care crisis.
It’s pretty simple why emergency rooms are overburdened. Here’s the real facts:

  • uninsured Americans use the emergency room like a doctor’s office clinic for non-emergent visits.
  • insured Americans use the emergency room for non-emergent care because their physicians do not have adequate after-hours coverage.
  • There is a nationwide shortage of registered nurses, meaning overall staffing for emergency rooms are low in times of critical need.
  • Funding for indigent care is cut meaning less resources in the emergency room and less availability for community after-hours clinics.
  • Americans do not receive proper preventive care to prevent the sudden onset of emergent situations.

    • If you are running for governor in Texas and looking for a health czar, I will glady forward my resume and salary requirements…because obviously whomever is doing it now is a total moron.

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    Comments (2)

     

    1. madasawethen says:
      September 29, 2006 at 1:30 am

      I am a ’self pay’ American citizen when it comes to health care. I went to a Houston emergency room on 7/3 (four day weekend) with a clean gash to the bone on my thumb. I couldn’t feel the tip of my thumb and was concerned about nerve damage. Three & 1/2 hours later I was told the nerves would grow back (they have) and was treated with 1 x-ray, 1 tetnus shot & 5 stitches. I asked for my bill and was told it would arrive in the mail. It did to the tune of $3,800. The bill includes ridiculous charges such as $430 for heart monitoring - and unexplicable charges - $169 for neck/scalp repair(?). The more calls I make the muddier things get. Hospitals have no customer service skills nor a sense of reason when it comes to billing. Then I read in last Sunday’s Houston Chron that Mexican women are coming here for free medical services delivering their children. And I quote the mother of four “Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can have your child here for free?” I now get what the not-so-hidden charges are for. And the hospitals wonder why we won’t just open our wallets. Maybe the insurance companies will pay without question but I refuse to hand my money over without a fight for a reasonable bill. I have no problem paying my own way but the hospital system has created a culture that makes it very hard to be responsible for yourself and very easy to hand the bill to some bloated entity. While I can’t get a call back from the hospital accounting dept, I have been solicited a dozen times by a company that bills the government on the hospitals behalf. Can we just Nationalize the Health Care System already and quit funding the beaurocratic paper pushing mess we have now?

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