But...But Everyone Has Health Care, If They Can Get To An Emergency Room!

Not exactly.  So much for that Republican meme.

Myers, one of some 1.2 million Michigan residents with no health insurance, according to CNN, endured a month of unbearable pain in her right shoulder after she injured it while playing with her dogs in her backyard, according to WSBT TV.  The 41-year old woman took pain medication but was not able to see a specialist since she can't pay for health insurance. Last week, feeling desperate, she shot herself in the right shoulder.

"They said it would have to be life-threatening or imminent danger for them to do anything, so I was making it be imminent danger that something had to be done," she told WSBT TV.

So they treated the gunshot wound, but didn't do a thing for the original injury that prompted her to put a bullet through her shoulder.

Plus she might face charges for discharging a weapon within city limits.

Via Balloon Juice.

Comments

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

The irony of this is added to when you remember that she's getting a bill from those emergency room visits, a bill that is probably larger than she would get from a PCP. True, they won't probably sue her to collect, and legally they are required to treat her -- in an emergency -- even if she has an outstanding debt (though the 'balance' might have a slight effect on the triage nurse for an 'ordinary visit' and she might have to wait longer to be seen -- not supposed to be that way, but it is). But it's on her credit record and will remain there, so if she ever gets on her feet, she'll have some 'black marks' to erase.

And remember the 'grab-back' of Medicaid as well. Maybe I stress this so much because I am feeling it -- they couldn't grab the house my wife's parents turned over to us and her brother, but if we ever try and sell it, they can reclaim every single cent they've paid for our care -- and my wife's medicines total several hundred dollars a month, and I have had three epidurals (next one in September) several cortisone shots a year, one knee operation (need the other knee done and eventually my shoulder) and my own pain meds have added up. We wouldn't get anything left over, and -- afaik -- there isn't a 'statute of limitation' that only covers payments over a specific period.

So this idea that 'everybody's covered already' needs *ahem* some refining to be accurate.

[litbrit]

My best friend worked as a legal secretary and had no health insurance (it wasn't provided by her employer, and she couldn't afford to self-insure).

At age 37, she started getting stomach pains and indigestion. The pain and acid reflux got bad enough that she "splurged" on herself and went to one of those walk-in clinics they tell uninsured people to go to. The doctor gave her a scrip for Prilosec and sent her home.

A week later, when my friend began vomiting blood, her mother took her to the emergency room. An MRI revealed a huge mass on her pancreas: cancer. They admitted her to hospital for several days--she stayed on the "indigents' floor", and was spoken to and treated like...well, I will not go into it; suffice it to say I will never forget how rude the staff was to her and her roommate. They did resect her digestive tract in the meantime, so she could at least eat; then they sent her home and put her in the care of a Hospice volunteer, who brought her enough morphine to keep her comfortable, if not lucid. She died ten days after the initial diagnosis.

Later that week, the hospital sent my best friend's grieving mother a bill for $80,000+.

This is why I care so much.

Why doesn't our government care about, and care for, its injured, sick, and dying citizens the way governments in other countries care about, and care for, their injured, sick, and dying citizens?

Do Americans not feel they deserve at least as much care from their governments as everyone else in the world?

I will never, ever understand it. I will never, ever understand the wingnut position on healthcare. Never. It is, in a word, unconscionable.

[Eric Wilde]

Do Americans not feel they deserve at least as much care from their governments as everyone else in the world?

Because its their fault they are poor and sick. Isn't it obvious?

/snark

[Sir Charles]

I have never really understood why the American people don't want universal health coverage that is de-linked from employment.

Possibly because they just aren't very smart.

[Eric Wilde]

On the more serious side, I do think that assigning blame to the victim is quite strong with respect to our lack of health care access for the poor (working or otherwise.)

I have a good friend who is conservative leaning in many regards. He's been out of work for about 3 years now, been evicted, has to walk wherever he goes because he can't afford a car, has no health care himself (though has been lucky wrt to his own health), etc. Still he believes that we shouldn't have universal health care because "it will destroy our economy taking care of people who are too lazy to take care of themselves." That's a real quote. I was just flabbergasted.

This also points out that people are afraid their quality of care will decrease or that there will be negative ramifications on the rest of society. Which, in the vein of Sir Charles, I take as evidence that many people just aren't very smart or aren't paying attention.

[kathy a.]

oh, ltc and litbrit. how heartbreaking those stories are. i wrote some time back about my son's terrible infections + injury while uninsured, and how he refused to go to the ER because he was afraid of being hounded about the huge fees, and so things advanced to the unbearable and dangerous point before he even asked us for help.

i also don't understand why universal health care is seen as threatening -- but from what i can gather, people are afraid of losing what little care they have. and the care a lot of people have, even with insurance, sucks.

one self-employed, healthy and fit friend got prostate cancer. he's doing great health-wise, but the surgery alone was $45,000. a self-employed couple i know have insurance, but they are expecting twins, it is a high-risk pregnancy, the mom's been on bedrest and unable to work. they may lose their little starter home.

there was a recent study showing that kaiser patients were having FAR fewer heart attacks, and better survival for those who did -- and this is primarily because of cheap meds to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol. people who cannot afford to see a doctor cannot get those cheap and effective meds.

this system just does not make sense.

[Eric Wilde]

this system just does not make sense.

Amen.

[minstrel hussain boy]

this whole for huge ass profit system of health care has always baffled me. really.

traditional healers among the apache will only accept blankets, tobacco or food for their services, and only then, if the folks being treated have enough to spare.

i always thought that it was a tribal thing, yet another example of how we haven't progressed culturally to the level of ya'll. we just be primitive like that. savages the lot of us.

great news! my little niece is here for the afternoon and i'm teaching her to make cocteles mariscos.

film at 11.

[litbrit]

I was just chatting with Sir C on the phone, and I happened to mention that I'd been trying to find a rheumatologist to address the very painful bone spurs I'm developing in my neck. I can take ibuprofen for the arthritis in my hands and right foot, but the neck issue is bad.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I looked at my insurance company's provider list and called the one nearest to my apartment. Their first question was not, "How may we help you?" or "What seems to be the matter?" but rather, a clipped "Who is your insurer?".

So, I told the person on the other end of the phone. She then said, "We don't have anything until late September, early October. Which do you prefer?"

I am in pain. Seriously. The doctor cannot see me any sooner?

"No. Which do you prefer--the last week in September or the second week in October? First week in October is all booked up."

I thanked her for her time and went to the next doctor on the list.

Exactly the same wait time.

Then I called the third doctor--he's forty miles away. The receptionist put me on hold, and after fifteen minutes I gave up and took the last Vicodin I had left from last year's incident with the scalding tea burn.

I tell you guys about this so that you, like me, can throw this in the face of any wingnut who tries to tell you government-subsidized healthcare will mean you'll have to wait weeks--maybe months!--for an appointment. We already do. Even when we're in pain.

(And yes, I have "Cadillac coverage" for which Robert and I pay more per year than a lot of people bloody earn. Such is life when you have to buy an small-business or individual policy.)

[kathy a.]

litbrit, can the PCP hold you over until then? that is a seriously bad long wait. but in line with what i hear from other friends in various locations with chronic pain / chronic conditions.

another friend was at a wedding recently, when she got collared by a management type from her husband's work for a "friendly" chat about "those moms who take their kids to the doctor for every stupid thing." this friend's 8 year old daughter has terrible headaches, and she and the younger 2 kids have the usual complement of stuff that happens to kids. wtf?

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

It might make sense, Deb, to see if your local hospital has a pain management clinic. They might be able to help you get the bone spurs taken care of, and in the meantime they will probably prescribe some lidoderm patches -- which are wonderful for both the bone spurs and the arthritis. (They can be a pain to apply, especially if you cut them into as many pieces as I need to -- I've made one patch cover over ten places -- and you have to use them on a 12 hours on, 12 hours off basis -- but they give literally instantaneous relief that lasts for hours. You may have a problem if your doctor doesn't give you samples, because of the crazy rules for pain medicine -- my Medicaid insurance provider requires the doctor himself -- not his staff -- to call them and clear it with them before they'll approve payment for them, and they are expensive without insurance -- but they are worth the trouble.)

I personally have never had a problem getting a same week appointment for my local pain management doctor -- who is connected with Maimonides -- and he is the one who gives me the epidurals, so talk talk talk and he may have some ideas for you.

[litbrit]

Kathy, Prup, thanks. I am going to call him (the primary care doc.) tomorrow--though I have tried to ask for pain meds before, and he's really squirelly about it (okay, he said no). In Florida, it seems there have been so many abuses of Vicodin, Oxy, Percs, etc., the doctors are monitored carefully and if they write too many scrips, they get flagged and audited.

I suppose it's just one more fucking thing to thank Rush Limbaugh for.

Those lidoderm patches sound awesome--I'd not heard of them! I had some prescription ibuprofen--the big 600 mg. horsepills, but I ran out (even those are on "no refill" status.) So I take three otc Motrins. But I worry that my stomach lining will soon wind up looking like a collection of knitting mistakes; heaven help my liver. What I want is some high-tech surgery to blast these things to bits with laser beams or something.

Okay, now I feel like my great-grandmother, bitching about my aches and pains and talking medicines--I'm sorry! ltc, look what you started! ;-)

[litbrit]

"those moms who take their kids to the doctor for every stupid thing."

That's another thing C and I were talking about today: the perception that if healthcare is "free" or "affordable", people will overuse it.

We found that laughable in the extreme. No-one likes going to the doctor, save the occasional person with Munchausen's! Good grief, I am years behind on dental care, years behind on routine stuff like mammograms and bone-density studies, because I just don't have the damned time to spend driving to and sitting around in doctor's offices. I suspect more people are like me than these wingnuts realize. I only go when I absolutely have to, because it's not exactly fun to be poked and prodded, etc., and, more saliently, going to the doctor kills a good half-day--and I don't have a half-day to spare, sadly. My boys have enough health care needs filling up those half-days.

Let's face it: their arguements against government-funded healthcare are all shit. They know, in their hearts (or where their hearts would be, if they had them) that once America got single-payer, within no time flat, everyone would love it and that would fucking be that. Tough shit, Aetna, Blue Cross, Universal, et. al. Buh-bye, sucks to be you, sayonara.

I mean, even the most conservative British politician does not dare speak of yanking health care away from the British people. Even the most conservative British citizen, when asked, would never trade places with someone living under the system we have here and risk going bankrupt. Or dying because he couldn't afford the care.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I can't use the 600mg ibuprofen -- instantaneous stomach problems. And my PCP won't prescribe Vicodin at all -- but my leg doctor will. (My pain guy suggested Fentanyl patches too, but both my doctor and my wife and I thought that was dangerous overkill.)

[litbrit]

(I meant to say UNITED, not Universal, the very nice theme park in Orlando who bought tons of bamboo from Robert, back in the day. Sorry, Universal! I did not mean to wish you tough shit and say it sucked to be you, not at all. It was the residual meds combined with Motrin and wine speaking, ha!)