Must Read from Paul Krugman: The Waiting Game

[flpoljunkie]

Monday, July 16, 2007
The Waiting Game

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.

The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.

Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/2007/07/waiting-game.html

[katmondoo]

1. Wait until you get the bill from the emergency room

then you will never go again.

[Auntie Bush]

2. Wait till you wait many, many hours in an emergency room to

get some help...you'll never go again unless it's a real life and death emergency...even then you may wait too long. Another thing about going to the emergency room is that hospitals are farther away by many more miles than your local Doctor. Lot's of people haver difficulty getting there or the person is DOA due to lack of immediate care. How much more expensive is it to the local hospital and community when the less fortunate can't pay their expensive ER bills? If they had that kind of money they'd have bought health insurance in the first place. Shame on America.....

[Doctor_J]

3. Here is a telling passage

'The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.'

In fact, wingers have long run out of honest arguments on any of their pet issues. They just lie and lie and keep on lying.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Yet Giuliani, Republican ilk, already calling Dem's health plans "socialized medicine." It's fact--

nothing will change, if we do not demand it of Congress--and demand it from both parties.

[Doctor_J]

4. The wingers want wait time to be based on how much money you have;

everyone else wants it to be based on how urgent your problem is. Once everyone has access to the same quality of care, insurance companies will have to find other ways to pay their executives billion-dollar bonuses.

[FormerDittoHead]

5. Destroying the middle class... We need single payer...

The rich have the best health insurance, and don't blink an eye to pay the $400 extra for the ambulance ride and bypass the wait at the emergency room...

The uninsured poor WILL get health care (via MedicaDe), and the gov't (ie: the middle class) will handle the bill.

The working/middle class, however, is what's being DESTROYED. Like a farmer sowing his fields, our houses, savings, etc are being taken away because we are irresponsible enough to get sick.

NOW GET THIS

ANY "intermediate" plan that isn't FULL BLOWN SINGLE PAYER will MAKE THIS SITUATION *WORSE*.

The Kerry plan to insure kids, for example, while noble, means that, again, the middle class who already are paying through the nose for health insurance, will be expected to pay higher taxes / fees (fees are regressive) to pay for the kids... Just watch and see.

Under any intermediate plan, I have NO expectations of 1) present health insurance rates coming down and 2) any such plan working for your own kids (for example) if you are ELIGIBLE for health insurance at your place of work...