Domino Effect Feared From Closures of Emergency Rooms

[spinbaby]

Los Angeles County, which has lost six emergency rooms in a little over a year, is on the brink of a far more serious problem, facing more closures that could jeopardize emergency care for tens of thousands of residents, according to public officials and independent analysts.

The next round of cuts is expected to target large, heavily used emergency rooms at private hospitals. If they proceed as expected, they will reduce by a further 10% to 15% the county's emergency room capacity, which already has lost the ability to serve 75,000 patients in the last 14 months, hospital and healthcare officials say.

(snip)

"It's very precarious for every single one of us," she said. "Whether you have insurance or not, if there's not a bed for you, you're not going to get in."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=6&u=/latimests/dominoeffectfearedfromclosuresofemergencyrooms

[BadGimp]

1. the cycle continues and widens

If we keep allowing more and more people to go uninsured, they will flock to emergency rooms whenever they are sick.

Now we are closing the emergency rooms.

What comes next?

Thanks Ahnold!

[Fovea]

3. What comes next?

Either National Universal Healthcare, or some interesting times.

[Xipe Totec]

4. It's worse than you can imagine

Even if you get to the ER, you still might not get treatment. Check this story from the Boston area:

Told to wait, asthma patient called ambulance for ride to another hospital

Thursday, June 3, 2004

WEYMOUTH, Mass. - A Braintree woman suffering from an ashtma attack called an ambulance to the emergency room at South Shore Hospital after she was told she'd have to wait at least two hours to see a doctor.

Christine Howard, 39, was taken to Quincy Medical Center, where she spent the next two days recovering.

Howard told a Quincy newspaper that she'd waited in the ER at South Shore in Weymouth for an hour on April 27 before nurses told her she'd have to wait even longer. They refused her request to call an ambulance because she wouldn't sign a release form, so Howard dialed 911 on her cell phone.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=30469&format=

[shanti]

10. "carousel"

that's what comes next :-( (watch logan's run)

[Mel]

2. So who will be the last person to die

before we decide the USA needs Universal Health Care?

[FlaGranny]

5. It's a good question.

The frightening thing is that there are those who do not care.

Edit: I know the fear - I cannot get health insurance. Uninsurable because of pre-existing condition, so I go without until I turn 65 in nine months.

[Mizmoon]

7. Common misconception

Check out this link. You CAN get coverage - the problem is you have to go back to work with an employer who offers group coverage:

http://www.ivillagehealth.com/experts/insurance/qas/0,11816,242111_173031,00.html

A quote:

Due to a recently passed federal law, all employees of businesses that offer health insurance as a benefit are eligible for guaranteed-issue insurance. In other words, insurance companies may not exclude any employee from participating in the employer's health insurance plan for any reason.

[Mel]

12. Universal Health Care

is a must and why should employment be tied to your having health insurance? I don't think so it makes people stay at miserable jobs it also holds people back from starting their own business. What about people that want to retire at 62 that do back breaking work all of their lives? Some trades you can't work till your 65 now 67 for my age group the body just doesn't last that long.

Another thing when you are 9 months away from retirement age of 65 getting a job is not so easy as it is for a person that's say 25 it's easier said than done to get a job with a company that offers insurance when your almost to retirement age.
From talking to my Mother she has told me yes there is a lot of age discrimination out there.

[Mizmoon]

13. We are in total agreement

total total agreement.

[Sparky McGruff]

15. What would "Harry and Louise" say? n/t

[FlaGranny]

16. Sure I could get insurance if I work full

time. The trouble is no one will give you medical insurance for part time work and I have problems that do not allow me to work full time.

[juajen]

17. Sorry, FlaGranny

I know how you feel. I am uninsured, have had to bankrupt because of a large medical bill and will not be insured until I have turned 65 and eight months. I will be 63 in September. I also have pre-existing conditions, and probably could not get a policy even if I could afford it. Sorry state of affairs.

[Mr.Green93]

6. these closures are racist and anti-immigrant (imho)

[apnu]

8. yes they are...

... welcome to the GOP's plan for America -- now with more whiteness!

[Tyler Durden]

9. The new "Color of Choice" isn't WHITE, it's GREEN.

Not to say that the LA ER closures do not heavily impact Black and Hispanic individuals: they do. But you can bet your sweet ass that you already know what talks (MONEY) and what walks (EVERYTHING ELSE).

Maybe, just maybe, Marx and Engels were right after all...?

[oscar111]

11. Private healthcare is insane

If it werent for the suffering, it would be laughable... all the strange patterns of new disasters that keep spinning without end from the labyrinth that is greedhead medicine.

Every year, some new complex pattern of disaster. First, in the sixites, NO HOUSECALLS. Then , hi prices, then insurance copays, caps, deductibles, no covering prior ills,

then HMO's were invented, and PPO's, and new laws banning suing them, then hospital dumping, then dr's could refuse to take any medicaid, medicare, then chains bought neighboring hospitals to close them in order to end competition from them,

then the poor forced to use ER's, then ER's understaffed, leading to "a wait of three days in the ER" at my town's hospital {i am not kidding}, now ER's doing this domino effect.

Wise up, get NATIONAL HEALTHCARE with the greedheads tossed out.
Now, the field is overrun with greedheads trying to make the family fortune. Cut dr. salary to fifty thousand, the national average. That will chase out greedheads , i guarantee.

And nothing else will. Also , it would chop the bill for healthcare from 1.6 trillion to 0.6 Trillion. {.4 T is just the insane paperwork processing costs of current duplicative system}

.6 trillion is easily funded, and will save a ton of money for society as a whole, ...a full trillion from the current amount spent by society as a whole.

Remember, dont look only at the tax amount, look at what we all pay now, versus the new plan's tax amount. A savings of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. Plus an end of the insanities listed above. Plus we return to housecalls!

[donsu]

14. watching america's health care crash

so, what happens now? we just stay home and die?

have the HOPE ship visit the US (the ship that goes around the world with volunteer US medical people)?

ask the Cuban medical people who go around the world volunteering to visit the US? float a boatload of sick people the other way toward Cuba?

visit quacks and hope for the best?

buy medical books and hope for the best?

move to a sane country?

drive the sick to Canada or Mexico?

try to pass legislation through the Repug ownership of congress?

revolt?

[davsand]

18. There is one department of a hospital REQUIRED to treat anyone coming in.

That would be the ER. They can't turn you away if you are uninsured and need immediate care. What they CAN do, however, is close up the ER so that they are no longer required to treat just anybody who strolls in.

There is a bill in front of Aahnuld right now waiting for him to sign in that REQUIRES hospitals to provide charity care for people at 400% of poverty level. Want to bet how likely it is he'll sign it?

What really pisses me off in this story is the section talking about the County hospitals and clinics that have been shut down. I am amazed at this--they are worried that people who need ER care will not get treatment--but yet they could give a crap about the poor people who depended on the clinics and county hospitals for treatment. The double standard is just amazing. Makes me ashamed to be in government service.

IF you are poor in this country, you are apparently not just a burden, you are now an actual hazard to the upper crust who has insurance.

GAWD, it just makes me ill.


Laura

[Xipe Totec]

19. Check Post #4 N/T

[Xipe Totec]

20. Tell Me Why This is Better Than Socialized Medicine

Family Speaks Out After Mom Delivers Baby At Home

Wed Aug 25, 7:09 AM

The family of a Dorchester mother who delivered her baby boy at home after being sent home from the hospital twice is speaking out about their scary experience.


NewsCenter 5's Jim Morelli reported that Denia Baez, 30, was nine months pregnant with her fourth child, when she went to Brigham and Women's on Saturday and Sunday saying she wasn't feeling well and was bleeding.

Staff at the hospital sent her home after they determined that her contractions were not that strong and that she was not in labor

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=383&e=1&u=/ibsys/20040825/lo_WCVB/2344936

[dArKeR]

21. Friend in Tacoma, WA told me that many nurses in WA hospitals have

been laid-off because the hospitals are losing money. He said the doctors have opened private clinics which are catering to the rich. Thus the hospitals having lost this income cannot afford the nurses and/or to provide assistance to people who are under employed without ability come up with thousands of dollars to pay for services and/or medication.

The nurses are being rehired into the private clinics.

I haven't seen anything in print about this.