Reply #25: Thanks. I'm glad you know that 100% of ER visits are for life threatening issues

[Juche]

ER visits are far far more expensive than primary care visits.

If someone/anyone can figure out how to create 24/7 urgent care clinics and primary care clinics that have universal access, and steer the people who make non life threatening visits to the ER to those instead, I'm 100% for it.

I think urgent care clinics cost something like 1/4th the cost of an ER visit. Primary care is even cheaper as far as I know.

Bernie Sanders found that for $14 billion over 5 years you can give primary care access to 25 million people. Doing so saves $23 billion from medicaid alone. No idea how much it'd save from private spending and health insurance savings.

Point is, if we create a system of universal access to urgent care clinics and primary care clinics, it would probably pay for itself in lower ER spending. And it would improve quality of life.

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/12/indep... /

For the health centers, the $14 billion in the bill that the House of Representatives approved on Nov. 7 would increase the number of centers from 20 million to 45 million over the next five years.

The investment would more than pay for itself by saving Medicaid $23 billion over five years on reduced emergency room use and hospital costs, according to a study conducted by George Washington University.