Do the Homeless Get Free Medical Treatment at American Hospitals?

[propita]

No, they don't have to wait. The ambulance company was sued in the past for doing just that, so they answer every call. And laws were enacted, not for the whiners but for the legitimate errors by medical personnel, which carry over to allow the whiners to abuse them.

As I said, there are legitimate medical issues requiring immediate assistance, even by the whiners and abusers. And the whiners and abusers shouldn't have to grovel to receive it. But they should follow the rules and they should not seek unneeded special priorities under circumstances that don't require them, taking resources away from others who actually DO require them at that moment. We're not talking emergencies here, just routine care.

How does that work? What people who need immediate attention aren't getting it because of fraudsters and whiners? It is not illegal to triage.

There has been at least one case. And due to the lawsuit, they will not triage, but transport. It's not right.

Surely, then, they could be prosecuted for fraudelent requests for emergency care?

***

Sounds to me as though that's the sort of abuse of public resources that "conservative" politicians should concentrate on addressing andcurbing, instead of arguing against healthcare for those who actually do desperately need it.

It's understandable and even laudable that liberals, in their determination to save lives and livelihoods, set up systems that can occasionally be misused in these sorts of ways. But, without excusing the actions of abusers, I'd rather society overreach in such matters than under-reach.

Total agreement here, except that its both conservatives and liberals who should be working to address this, so that the money that IS spent, is spent right. "Right" as in "not wasted."

 

[SonOfMogh]

Reading this thread reminds me that America is fucked up.

 

[Darth Duck]

Reading this thread reminds me that America is fucked up.

I weep for America.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

No, they don't have to wait. The ambulance company was sued in the past for doing just that, so they answer every call. And laws were enacted, not for the whiners but for the legitimate errors by medical personnel, which carry over to allow the whiners to abuse them.

As I said, there are legitimate medical issues requiring immediate assistance, even by the whiners and abusers. And the whiners and abusers shouldn't have to grovel to receive it. But they should follow the rules and they should not seek unneeded special priorities under circumstances that don't require them, taking resources away from others who actually DO require them at that moment. We're not talking emergencies here, just routine care.

How does that work? What people who need immediate attention aren't getting it because of fraudsters and whiners? It is not illegal to triage.

There has been at least one case. And due to the lawsuit, they will not triage, but transport. It's not right.

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying.

If there are x ambulances available, and they have x+y calls within a short span of time, then they are going to have to delay picking up y individuals, or refer them to another hospital's ER, where the same calculation will have to be made.

That they do not appear to have had to make such a choice thus far just shows there is currently some slack in the system, which is actually a good sign, considering how ERs tend to be overloaded. Now, if we cover more and more people, there should be less ER traffic, because ERs are often used by people who are uninsured so they can get care. Such care is often expensive and complicated and could have been handled in a much cheaper and more orderly fashion by the patient's assigned GP.

In other words, this "abuse" you cite of ambulance services should actually diminish under Obamacare.

 

[teya]

Hubby was on call this past weekend. A parent called him--child receiving free medical care and the formula she opened was the wrong one. Okay, she had enough for the weekend, so fix it Monday, right? No! She wanted it fixed NOW, regardless of the costs to the hospital (read CA taxpayers) to get both a pharmacist into the office and the deliveryman on a Sunday (this department is closed weekends, but with people on call for emergencies). True, there was a delivery error (long before Hubby started working there), but she signed for the item without checking. The delivery person is delivering, not checking prescriptions--not qualified. Had she checked, as she was supposed to, there would have been no false-emergency. This was formula with a few nutritional additives, not medication.

These the kinds of attitude that are wrong. Not the "I'm out of insulin" or "my child just broke their arm and needs help now" things, or the once-a-year well-child checkup which can catch problems early.

I can see this from both sides, both as the provider who tries her damndest to explain why this emergency really isn't and from the point of view of a caregiver who is at the end of her rope.

Parents of chronically ill children don't get weekends off. They are on the job 24/7. A caregiver lives in a state of chronic anxiety & exhaustion & that can addle your brain after awhile.

Been there. I wasn't always the nicest when a provider was patiently explaining his position to me, either. I'm sure there are notations in my sweetie's charts saying, "Spoke with girlfriend. She's a bitch."

 

[Gaith]

Total agreement here, except that its both conservatives and liberals who should be working to address this, so that the money that IS spent, is spent right. "Right" as in "not wasted."

Ideally, sure. But once a health care system is in place, I don't think it's unfair to ask that the minority that opposed it to take a lead in fine-tuning it to the maximum benefit of all.

And now that the Dems finally have a supermajority in CA's legislature, there's bigger fish to fry than occasional misuses of the system by certain folks (and again, I definitely think the police should aggressively prosecute blatantly fraudulent ambulance requests). I'd rather they focus on restoring economic justice to the state budget than interfering with poor moms who want the right baby formula for their infants.

 

[propita]

See? I'm an idealist! Co-workers called me and Hubby pessimists when we gave our opinions about upcoming "all-hands" meetings, and we were nicknamed "Gloom" and "Doom." We told them that we were not "pessimists" but "disappointed idealists," wanting the best possible outcome from the facts at hand, but never expecting it, based on past experiences.

 

[CoveTom]

Absolute nonsense with no factual basis.

Interesting. So you think that the government has sufficient resources that it can provide unlimited health care for everyone with no restrictions? On what do you base that?

 

[Sector 7]

Reading this thread reminds me that America is fucked up.

I weep for America.

And yet other countries always ask us to do the world's dirty work.

America's system may not be perfect, but much of the civilized world has copied it. I joined the fight to provide healthcare to everyone. In America, people can band together to accomplish great things... even if it takes awhile to get it done.

 

[Kelthaz]

Absolute nonsense with no factual basis.

Interesting. So you think that the government has sufficient resources that it can provide unlimited health care for everyone with no restrictions? On what do you base that?

The success of universal health care systems in Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands for one?

 

[Gotham Central]

Absolute nonsense that isn't even a little bit true. Obama wanted a public option and fought hard for it. He didn't even have the votes for that, not even from his own party, even though he said there would be no healthcare reform without it. Congress called his bluff and he had to drop it, which resulted in the individual mandate instead. To say we didn't get single-payer because Obama didn't "fight hard enough" is just factually wrong. It wasn't going to happen, not with the makeup of Congress at the time. Sorry.

Actually, Obama did have the votes for a single payer system but wanted a bipartisan solution. The (single) Republican that Obama targeted was Olympia Snowe. The plan was watered down until she was willing to vote for it in the Senate Finance Committee (which she did), but then she voted against it in the final senate vote (making it pretty much a wasted effort and a lost opportunity for the rest of us).

Exactly. I'm amazed by what people like to see in their own head.

Obama had the 60 votes, and the house. He wanted to work with the Republicans who didn't want health care, who don't want to work with Obama. Obama wasted time instead of actually fighting for what he supposedly wanted, he backed down and watered the bill down for no reason.

Obama wanted health care reform, Republicans didn't. Trying to do some BS on "working together" was and still is a waste of time.

I'm not understanding what you're talking about. As has been pointed out, there were 60 Democratic leaning votes in the Senate, but there were NEVER 60 Democratic supporters of single payer health care. I will remind you that folks like Joe Liberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln etc were part of that 60 and they fought tooth and nail against even the modest proposals of the President. Add to that the fact that Joe Liberman was on some sort of vendetta against liberal Democrats because they primaried him out of the party and nearly cost him his seat. In fact, Liberman actually proposed a modest adjustment to Medicare that would have added millions of people to the rolls and could have been a back door to single payer. Liberals actually liked his proposal and came out in support of it as a good compromise. Upon learning that the liberal wing LOVED the idea Liberman promptly scuttled it and refused to support his own proposal. He did it out of spite.

There was so much going on with the whole health care debate that people have forgotten that there was no consensus position on anything. The democrats were getting into fights with members of their own party/caucus.

The Blue Dogs and Liberman killed the more liberal ideas in the legislation and thus forced the republicans to run even further to the Right just to find something to disagree with.

 

[Gotham Central]

Who the hell are you to decide who deserves life-saving medical treatment and who doesn't? Your child at home gets a little mouthy, so you cut off her insulin until she behaves?

For real. I do not want someone arbitrarily deciding who "deserves" medical care and who doesn't.

But that's exactly what will happen when health care is "free". There will eventually not be enough money to pay for everything for everyone, so someone will have to decide who gets what, and how much of it. That someone will be the bureaucracy created by the new system.

It will cost a fortune to run, it will be unbelievably inefficient, and will be accountable to no one but itself.

Deny it all you want, but just watch.

I've heard conservatives spew this bile before. The thing that they love to gloss over is that their little scenario HAPPENS RIGHT NOW!

The difference between rationing in a government run system vs a private system is that the government will ration resources based on NEED. Private systems ration care based on the ability to pay. So in countries with UHC, EVERYONE gets adequate care even if most people don't get the luxury care that you find in the US. In the US some people get first class medicine of the future...other people get nothing.

It seems to me that if you accept that medical care is a scarce resource...which conservatives universally agree on...then it seems reasonable that the best way to divvy up those resources would be to ensure that the people most in need get first crack at care. Instead what we have is a situation where people with the most money move to the front of the line and consume as much of the resources as they afford. Those with nothing get next to nothing. Even those with insurance can be denied coverage by insurance adjusters and in the worst case scenarios can be dropped entirely.

How is the current system better than one based on need?

 

[Squiggy]

Absolute nonsense with no factual basis.

Interesting. So you think that the government has sufficient resources that it can provide unlimited health care for everyone with no restrictions? On what do you base that?

The success of universal health care systems in Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands for one?

Well, besides all that...what have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[jayrath]

As has been proven so often, preventive care saves many, many dollars over emergency care.

Only emergency care cannot be refused -- and by then it's hugely expensive, and often too late.

Universal coverage works well for the rest of the world, and at far lower cost with far greater success. In what way are Americans so special that we must refuse even the idea of it?

The insurance industry essentially has a license to print money. I've worked in medical software. You cannot believe the obscene waste -- all paid for by someone's health premiums. It disgusts me.

 

[thestrangequark]

Absolute nonsense with no factual basis.

Interesting. So you think that the government has sufficient resources that it can provide unlimited health care for everyone with no restrictions? On what do you base that?

The success of universal health care systems in Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands for one?

You and your irrefutable evidence.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

No, they don't have to wait. The ambulance company was sued in the past for doing just that, so they answer every call. And laws were enacted, not for the whiners but for the legitimate errors by medical personnel, which carry over to allow the whiners to abuse them.

California imposes an affirmative duty to act with tort liability and waives sovereign immunity? That seems a bit odd. I know California tort law is more willing to impose duties to act, but it still seems they can make legitimate decisions of where to allocate their resources if they don't have any to spare.

Obama had the 60 votes, and the house.

Actually, that's not true. They had 59 votes, but they never had 60 able to vote (the timing of Franking and Kennedy being key here). And that suggests people like Sen. Machin (who I think voted against the ACA) would have voted for a single-payer option.

 

[DanCPA]

In what way are Americans so special that we must refuse even the idea of it?

I wish I could reply, but this isn't TNZ

 

[propita]

No, they don't have to wait. The ambulance company was sued in the past for doing just that, so they answer every call. And laws were enacted, not for the whiners but for the legitimate errors by medical personnel, which carry over to allow the whiners to abuse them.

California imposes an affirmative duty to act with tort liability and waives sovereign immunity? That seems a bit odd. I know California tort law is more willing to impose duties to act, but it still seems they can make legitimate decisions of where to allocate their resources if they don't have any to spare.

Private ambulance company, contracted with the city or county (can't remember which), who got sued and is now gunshy of turning anyone down. Cya to an extreme. Can't blame the ambulance company. I blame the abusers of the system, and the lack of protection for the ambulance company. It's understandable, though, because a protective law can be abused by by an unscrupulous company, just as the lack of law is abused by the "patients." A no-win situation as long as someone is willing to say "fuck you I want what I want"--and those people will always be around.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It still strikes me as dumb and could be remedied in a better way.

Any idea how the lawsuit ended up?

 

[CoveTom]

Absolute nonsense with no factual basis.

Interesting. So you think that the government has sufficient resources that it can provide unlimited health care for everyone with no restrictions? On what do you base that?

The success of universal health care systems in Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands for one?

So this systems place no restrictions what-so-ever on health care? There's not a single treatment, medication, or procedure that is ever denied? For anyone? Because that's what I was asking about.