By GottaLaff
Whew! And here I thought health insurance was a problem for this country:
A health care policy adviser for the McCain campaign [John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy] told a newspaper reporter that nobody in the United States is technically uninsured, because everyone has access to hospital emergency rooms."So I have a solution [to the health care crisis]. And it will cost not one thin dime," John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, told the Dallas Morning News in an interview published Thursday.
"The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care. So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."
::smacks forehead:: Of course! It's all so easy! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Ooo! Ooo! ::raises hand wildly:: I know! Because it's insane. About that little detail that emergency rooms don't practice preventive health care. And about those 3 hour waits. And about that... oh never mind.
Hospital emergency rooms cannot technically turn away anyone for financial reasons. [...]
UPDATE: McCain's campaign says they do not consider Goodman to be an official campaign adviser.
Thank goodness. For a minute there, I thought someone who helped craft J Sid's health care policy was somehow affiliated with J Sid's campaign.
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19 comments:
What the Gallup Poll should look like now:
Obama 99%
McCain: 1% (the one per cent being his family)
Where do you even start with this?
Just another reminder that Republicans are fueled by greed, stupidity and hate.
HA AHA excluding his wife's sister of course!
Ellen, I'm getting there. : )
Bux... I almost fell off my chair when I read this how ignorant could people be there is no Mayor who does not complain about the toll ER bills are taking on their cities... OMFG I cannot believe anyone anyone who go into that booth and vote for this man
Technically, McCain doesn't have any official advisers. In the grand Republican tradition, they're all independent contractors.
Laffy, that 1% might actually include his large domestic staff as well.
Clancy - the SERVANTS will quietly vote for Obama they need health insurance
As for your polling numbers, maybe we'll get there after all. Gallup's daily tracking poll seems to be indicating a decent bounce for Obama so far:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109897/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Moves-Ahead-48-42.aspx
Good point, Ellen. But they can only do it if Cruella gives them the day off.
Ellen, on of the worst things about this crap is that it isn't true!
Yes, ERs are required by law to treat anyone with a life-threatening problem ... IF they have space and resources available. Hospital ERs can issue what is termed a "drive-by" alert which let's ambulances know that they need to drive by and go to the next emergency room because that particular emergency has no more room to take critical patients. They can also turn away people at the door under this alert with no legal repurcussions.
Of course, it isn't hard for a hospital ER to have all of their beds full pretty much all of the time.
Funny, but most of the for-profit hospitals here in Houston have "drive-by" alerts as a matter of routine practice. You can get past a drive-by alert, of course, if you have insurance and your insurance carrier has agreements with the hospital. Otherwise, you go to the county facility and wait around to die with all the other uninsured riff-raff.
OOOOOOOOO Clancy I never thought of that,,,,
Cool, next time I'm in the ER I'll just deny I have the shitty insurance I have, and send the bill straight to the government. Awesome. I'm going to the ER for EVERY thing now...
BYW, is "The Prince of Tides" the last decent movie Nick Nolte made before he totally lost his mind?
I wonder what Michael Moore would say about this...
That assumes that PoT is a decent movie, Ady. I would say that one day, while on the set of "Blue Chips," Nolte had an epiphany: life really wasn't worth all the trouble.
It's been down hill ever since, but he probably lost any chance at turning it around while doing line with Oliver Stone on the set of U Turn.
so this means when/if McCain gets in the white house we can mail him our medical bills enmass?
Cool.
See, these are the buttholes we have to deal with here in Texas...
George Bush went to Washington and all we got was his clowns
Adrienne and Anon, unfortunately, long before some (local) government pays your bill, you are going to be turned over to collection agencies and your credit will be ruined.
The latest trick for hospitals is to have you sign papers applying for credit from a private firm to pay for your hospital bill. You know, you take you kid into the hospital because he's been injured in an auto accident and they shove all these papers in your face and tell you to sign so she can get treatment. One of those papers is now often a loan app for a private company to take over payment of your bills.
The trick here is that in a bankruptcy filing, medical bills can be negotiated down. But thanks to the recent new and improved (thanks Biden et al) bankruptcy bill, credit companies must be paid back.
So by moving the bill to a credit company instead of a hospital, they can effectively stop you from declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying the bill.
It's a win-win for the hospital. They get paid by the local/state/federal government for your unpaid bill. The credit company (which they own) doesn't pay the hospital until you pay them. And you can never get out from under the debt.
It's good to own congressmen.
ER's do not do chemotherapy. Or radiation therapy. They do not do scans for breast cancer or prostate cancer. There are many critical care treatments that are not done in the ER.
As Bucky has pointed out, it is a huge Republican lie that anyone can get free treatment in the ER. A couple of years ago I called Parkland hospital, our county hospital, and asked for the billing department. I was curious because I kept hearing that anyone could go to the ER and I didn't believe it. They explained to me that if I needed treatment I would be billed. That some people do qualify for medicaid, but VERY few do. Everyone else gets to pay.
In the state of South Carolina, you do NOT receive your state income tax refund if you have an unpaid medical bill. The state keeps your damned refund-- the whole thing even if you only owe a small amount of medical bills.
It's a very crappy deal. if you owe $50 and you're due a $100 refund, SC keeps all of it. Pretty good deal for SC, isn't it? The way around this, of course, is to not have any state income tax withheld but lots of folks get caught off guard.
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