Emergency Rooms are the new walk-in clinics

[YewNork]

According to the American College of Emergency Physicians, in a survey in January of more than 1,700 emergency doctors,
66 percent said they'd seen an increase in the number of patients in their emergency rooms over the preceding six months.
Most of the physicians -- 83 percent -- reported seeing patients who'd lost their jobs and health insurance and delayed medical care.

[Skittles]

1. not so new

poor folk have been doing it a long, long time

[sandnsea]

4. It's only "new"

when the upper income have to do it.

I will never forget when Richard Pryor said that when a social ill happens in a black community it's a crime spree, when it happens in a white community it's an epidemic. Always thought that was true, but the way everybody is suddenly looking so differently at everything from credit cards to student loans to collection agencies, has been a real eye-opener. This is stuff that people have been complainig about since the 80s. Do you think they might realize poor people don't have access to the courts some day too??

[inthebrain]

2. New?

Where have you been?

It's been that way for the last 20-30 years.

[glowing]

3. This is why the 47 million without healthcare number is a lie.

With 6 million people unemployed, and businesses having to cut anything just to stay open, more and more people have less access to medical insurance. The number one reason the ins. co's want a mandatory ins. clause is because they are dying. They will die out on their own because the costs are too high in a depression. AND when people forgo medical attention and wait until the last minute, the costs for care normally increase greatly for the treatment procedure.

[DJ13]

5. Besides no insurance, part of the reason the poor use ER's is

....because clinics tend to see people by appointments instead of real walk in service.

I almost had to take my wife to the ER when she was suffering diabetic symptoms until I could convince the local clinic how serious her condition was, then they took her within an hour.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

6. Hypo or hyper?

[Ocracoker16]

7. that is the way it has been for years

[justgamma]

8. I think that if there was some way

to keep a doctor in a walk in clinic, without having to be formally admitted to the hospital, it would save a ton of money.
Having raised 4 kids and having 10 grands, I can tell you, they never get hurt or sick during office hours. Many was the time we had to drive over 50 miles at night to a clinic that was open for things that could be taken care of in the office. A lot of people don't have that luxury.