Here is a copy/paste of a post from WhiteCoat's call room on emergency medicine. Shocking this man is considered a frontrunner as a future presidential candidate. Sorry I haven't posted much lately....I have been too busy offering "free care" and hugging trees.
--ER Doc
Need “Entirely Free Health Care?” Go to the ER!
March 5th, 2010
After hearing Mitt Romney’s views of emergency medical care during a recent interview, I’ve concluded that he is a dope.He was recently interviewed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” about some book he’s peddling and his response to one of the questions just shows that he has no clue about the economics of health care.
Question: Do you believe in “universal coverage”?
Answer: “Oh, sure. Look, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way.”
Can’t embed the video here, so you’ll have to go to MSNBC and start the video at about 5:35 to cut to the chase.
Hospital emergency departments provide medical care to patients just for the heck of it with no expectation of payment? Businesses just give you services and you don’t have to pay them for it? Great business model! Why didn’t I think of that?
In fact, I like that business model so much that I’ve decided to go to Massachusetts to take out a loan at a bank. Then I can get some “entirely free money for which I have no responsibility.”
On the way, I’ll stop at a car dealership where I can get an “entirely free car for which I have no responsibility.”
And I’m going to enroll my kids in some Massachusetts colleges where they can get an “entirely free education for which they have no responsibility.”
Oops. Better watch what I say before I get thrown in the Gulag.
Don’t laugh, using Mitt Romney’s logic, the “emergency room” docs in Massachusetts are already there.
8 comments:
Am I reading it wrong. I think Romney wants ED to be paid that is why he is for Universal Coverage.
You're reading it wrong. Romney says that people go to the ER to get free care.....this is not the case but since most people come and don't pay their bill, it's essentially what they are getting.....gotta love idiots in government, no wonder shit is so f**ked up!
I don't believe Mitt Romney was/is encouraging people to go to the Emergency Room because it's free.
I believe he was commenting on the fact that many of those people don't pay for the care they receive, leaving it on the shoulders of those of us who do pay.
No...he wasnt encouraging people to go to the ER. It wasn't like Bushes comment a few years ago. I went back and watched the video. The problem was he proclaimed emergency care as free. He said people go to the ER for completely free care....some of which he says have money to pay for insurance. So directly he is not encouraging people to go to the ER. But the ER isn't free, so it shows a measure of ignorance on his part to say that the ER is free. And if you say something is free....people are going to go for the free stuff.
What he didn't say was that the "millions" of uninsured people that go to the ER for care have a medical card. The treatment they receive at the ER most certainly IS free...to them.
That's WHY they go to the ER and not a regular doctor's office. A medical card will pay for ER care...but not an office visit.
What is a medical card?
Anon, a medical card...at least here in Illinois...is a Medicaid card.
This uninsured went to the ER in December late one evening with weird chest pains. I was diagnosed with pleuresy and walking pnuemonia. I am now working hard to pay that bill bit by bit. I'd rather pay my hospital bill than my mortgage. You folks save lives -my house and my mortgage bank just sucks my life away.
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