What is more expensive, making everyone get health insurance, or having them use the emergency room?
Whаt іѕ more expensive, mаkіng everyone gеt health insurance ѕο thеу саn gеt preventative care, diagnosing problems before thеу become emergencies…
- οr -
Having thеm wіth nο insurance, аnd having thеm υѕе thе emergency room fοr еνеrу health problem thеу hаνе, whose costs аrе thеn passed down tο thе tax payer. Or having thеm gο bankrupt bесаυѕе current insurance companies deny thеіr coverage, thus passing thе cost down tο thе tax payer.
Whісh іѕ more expensive? Links wουld bе welcome.
** : somebody hаѕ tο pay fοr іt. Thе hospitals wont, thе patient саn’t, thus thе taxpayer dοеѕ.
Whісh іѕ more expensive, аn emergency room visit, οr a general checkup.
Why should the hospital pay for emergencies that the patient refuses to pay for?
EXACTLY. When people who have no health insurance get a bad cold, or a sinus infection, or even a toothache, they head for the ER, where they are treated for thousands of dollars, none of which they’ll ever pay, and TAXPAYERS wind up paying for it. It’s atrociously expensive, as anyone who’s ever been to an ER will tell you. They’ll charge you $500 for a $10 throat swab for godsakes. You will never hear this on Fox News, of course.
Regardless, they’ll still use the ER. Many don’t even have Dr.’s; they just use the ER when they have a problem AND they can’t turn you away, where some insurances and Dr’s can.
All of it is expensive to people like me that might get a cold every ten years, and doesn’t run to the hospital for every little thing.
According to the recent (non-partisan) Congressional Budget Office Study, having all of us pay for people abusing the ER is far more expensive, and that is the data used to demonstrate that the “Health Care Reform Bill” would actually (eventually) reduce costs, since whilst you & I would be “forced” to buy coverage, we would no longer be forced to pay for Mrs. Dingbat to take Little Timmy to the ER because he had a cold…..in light of the published numbers, it would seem that the ONLY people who don’t believe “making everyone get health insurance” would save money are those who SAY they believe in “Free market forces” but don’t actually trust them to work!
Pay for it through payroll withholdings from the patient. Allow insurance companies to sell across state lines.
Why don’t they use the urinal, they would at least get some trickle down.
The average emergency room visit will cost around $700 to $1,000.
The words “making everyone get healthcare” are misleading and incorrect. The “mandatory” rule that will kick in about three years from now in 2014 simply means that healthy young people (or people in general who are in good health) must have some sort of coverage while they are in good health and not simply wait until they show up ill or injured and have the rest of America foot their bills. Republican Mitt Romney set this up in Massachusetts while he was governor, and the for-profit insurers lobbied to have this provision in order to offset the costs of covering people with pre-existing conditions or catastrophic illnesses—they did not want to be all outpay and no income, which in a capitalist society does make some sense.
Having typed for graduate-level nurses and medical students for years, I know that Emergency Room care is much more expensive than standard outpatient care. The other problem with having non-life-threatening patients make use of the Emergency Rooms is that when there is a national or local emergency, the staff is used up by the free-loaders and this could actually cost people their lives. Think about 9/11 when all of the survivors (many of them seriously injured) had to be rushed to NYC hospitals for emergency care—so what if the waiting rooms and patient rooms were full of people without insurance who just wanted to be treated for a common cold, the flu, or some other less serious disease or injury?
Study the provisions and consumer protections for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2009 and the addendum signed the following Monday at whitehouse.gov or you can also go to cnn.com/healthcare. ReadTheBill.org is an excellent resource as well for any legislation pending or passsed—a site provided by the Sunlight Foundation. And try opensecrets.org to find out which of our elected representatives took the MOST money from the health care and insurance industries prior to passage and also which ones are NOW receiving massive amounts of cash from the industries who do NOT want reforms!
your point is obvious, Of course it is less expensive to see your provider than go to the emergency room.
Yes, we can pay for their care by either haivng the government subsidize the cost of their health plan or we can pay higher premiums due to increased costs being transferred to those with insurance. We pay, we just now have a choice as to how.
The second point that is often missed is that this health care reform bill is closing all the loopholes that insurers had available to drop us when we needed them the most. This saved us all money. Closing those loopholes will be costly in the form of increased premiums, but now we ALL have policies that will be there when we need them.
I think if people realized how easily we could be screwed over by the insurance industry they would embrace the health plan fully.
I work for the health insurance industry. If you think you have good insurance and this can’t happen to you (getting dropped) you were wrong. Everyone is vulnerable.
That whole “Freedom” thing was overrated anyway.
Can’t wait to hear what kind of car I’m ordered to buy,what foods I’m allowed to eat,how many hours a day I am required to exercise,and how much electricity I’m allowed to use.Can’t see why anyone EVER thought they should be allowed to run their own lives.
August