Originally Posted by jyl
Tobra, what you're saying doesn't actually work. Its not a substitute for actual health care.
Yes, if your bones are broken or you have been shot or cut or you are severely ill, you can go to an emergency room and be treated.
But if you are a lower-income, working-class person without insurance, who tries to be financially responsible, then you can only do this once or twice. The emergency room charges will break you - like, a month's living expenses per visit. So the ER really only works for the uninsured person who is already impoverished and/or and don't care about bills or paying. Your prescription (just go to the ER for free care) is one way that working-class people end up going bankrupt.
But forget the financial aspect - does it make any sense for an uninsured person to have to go to an emergency room for medical care? Absolutely not.
First, emergency rooms are for emergency care. Try walking into your local ER and asking for your annual physical, for an OB/GYN exam, for preventative care, or for continuing care of a chronic illness. Just try it. Doesn't work. So people who depend on ERs don't get that kind of preventative and ongoing care. They get sicker and sicker, and when they show up at the ER they are much worse off than if they had normal healthcare.
Second, the emergency room is the worst place for our healthcare system to treat patients. It is very expensive to deliver care there, especially for people who can't pay. Why do you think so many urban ERs are being forced to close? The next time you are in, say, an auto accident, better hope the nearest ERs haven't gone bankrupt and they don't have to drive you for 40 minutes to one that is open.
Third, the emergency room is a bad place for patients to go, unless they actually have emergencies. Can you imagine taking your little child to a big-city ER. Sitting there for hours among gunshot cases, bloody accident victims, freaky drug overdoses, etc? You call that decent health care?
Fourth, the ER will give you emergency care. What happens after you are discharged, but need on-going medication, therapy, outpatient care, etc? ERs don't do that. No insurance to cover your prescription? You get to go without, until you get sick enough, then you end up back in the ER.
People who say "everyone in the US has free healthcare, just go to the ER" just aren't making any sense.
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