Emergency Room Visits Are Killing Me

Those who would push for national healthcare, in addition to bombarding the rest of us with meaningless statistics about the supposed number of Americans who have no insurance and also create the fictitious ranking of American healthcare vs other countries are usually the same people who supported free and unlimited emergency room care for everyone who walks through the door - paid for by the rest of us in our insurance costs and our taxes.

There is no-one in the USA who cannot afford a $20 – 30 co-payment for emergency room care once or twice a year (which would be plenty of visits for reasonable people). Such a charge would eliminate most of these absurd visits and dramatically lower healthcare costs for most Americans. It also seems like every time I have had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night in Rhode Island, I always have to sit beside a prisoner who has a tummy ache sitting there in shackles, guarded by two or three policemen.

Austin ER's got 2,678 visits from 9 people over 6 years

Task force seeking ways to divert non-emergencies away from emergency rooms.

April 01, 2009 Austin-American Statesman (Excerpts)

In the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million, according to a report from a nonprofit made up of hospitals and other providers that care for the uninsured and low-income Central Texans.

One of the nine spent more than a third of last year in the ER: 145 days. That same patient totaled 554 ER visits from 2003 through 2008….

Kitchen estimated that each ER visit averaged about $1,000. The cost represents a national average for all ER patients, said Anjum Khurshid, the ICC's director of clinical research and evaluation and co-author of the report.

The ICC, whose mission is to work with safety-net providers to improve access to and quality of care, has a database of 750,000 uninsured and underinsured Central Texas patients collected from its members. That database is confidential because of patient privacy laws. It found that 900 frequent users — people who visited an ER six or more times in three months — had 2,123 preventable visits in 2007, or 18 percent of 11,600 total visits to Central Texas ERs, which cost more than $2 million. Among those picking up the bill were hospitals and taxpayers, including government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, Kitchen said.

It’s going to be very tough to oppose the formidable propaganda machine the Obamaites have assembled to fool the country into accepting government supplied, universal healthcare. For example:
200 nearly identical MSM headlines

April 9, 2009 Blue Ross Journal (Excerpt)

The following headlines have appeared in newspapers within the last 24 hours. This is not an inclusive list.

• Third of Illinoisans went without health insurance in last 2 years: Sun-Times
• Report: 2.5M in Michigan lacked health insurance: Chicago Tribune
• Study: 29% of Ohioans have gone without health insurance: BizJournals
• Report: More NJ residents lacking health insurance: Forbes
• Study: Many Kansans are uninsured: BizJournals
• Report tallies uninsured in Hawaii: KPUA AM 670
• Study: 1 in 3 Alabamians have no insurance: BizJournals
• 1 out of 4 NH residents lacked health insurance within last two years: WBZ
• 1 out of 3 Coloradans lacked insurance in past two years: Denver Post
• Nearly 1 in 3 Idahoans lack health insurance, study says: Idaho Statesman
• One in four nonelderly Minnesotans has been without health insurance, study shows: Twin Cities
• 1 in 3 are uninsured in Georgia, study says: Augusta Chronicle
• 1.3 million Louisiana residents uninsured: Independent
• Millions in N.C. lack health plan: Winston-Salem Journal
• Uninsured are mostly working: Sun-Herald
• Nearly one-third of Wyoming residents went without health insurance in past two years: Wyoming Tribune
• Report finds health insurance lacking in W.Va.: Charleston Gazette
• Nearly 1/3 Of Kentuckians Uninsured Says Report: WFPL Radio
• REPORT: 254K Rhode Islanders Uninsured at Some Point from 2007-2008: ABC 6

All of the stories were marketed by a liberal "advocacy group" called Families USA.

According to Discover the Networks, Families USA is a member of the "Progressive States Network", which works closely with (you guessed it) ACORN and the SEIU. These ultra-partisan groups have truly one agenda: big government.

During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama spoke to a conference of Family USA activists and promised, "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country."