Alabama's fifth congressional district has voted Democratic for the past 18 years, putting Bud Cramer, an admirable politician, in office.Cramer has finally stepped down to allow new blood into the position. His endorsement went to Parker Griffith, a doctor with an agenda for what else? Health care.
While his Republican opponent, Wayne Parker, recognized cracks in the current system, he offered tax breaks and deductions to allow health care recipients to purchase health care and have the freedom to choose which kind.
Griffith's plan is to make sure everyone has health care (though he fails to mention the "how " in this scenario) and, get this, he's supporting paying the tuition for med students who enter a specialty in need of doctors. A Democrat who gives handouts to people who will make hundreds of thousands of dollars annually! What kind of a Democrat does that? And, where's all the money going to come from to pay for insurance for 303,824,640 people? Well, Griffith better start thinking about the "how" because he's up to bat.
2 comments:
Do you know why an asprin costs $120 in a hospital? It's because the hospital is subsidizing the costs for care of uninsured sick people.
These are people that come to the more expensive emergency room when their condition is dire because they cannot afford to see a regular doctor. It costs more to take care of them in an emergency room and their condition has become much worse as a result of waiting so it also now costs more to treat the condition.
We are all paying the cost of medical coverage for the uninsured through higher medical costs. That's why medical costs are risinf 10% or more every year and why your insurance costs keep increasing. Moreover, we are paying much more than necessary for that coverage because it is given in emergency rooms when things have progressed rather than in a doctor's office as less expensive preventative care.
AUSTIN, Texas – Just nine people accounted for nearly 2,700 of the emergency room visits in the Austin area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report. The patients went to hospital emergency rooms 2,678 times from 2003 through 2008, said the report from the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.
"What we're really trying to do is find out who's using our emergency rooms ... and find solutions," said Ann Kitchen, executive director of the group, which presented the report last week to the Travis County Healthcare District board.
The average emergency room visit costs $1,000. Hospitals and taxpayers paid the bill through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, Kitchen said.
Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless. Five are women whose average age is 40, and four are men whose average age is 50, the report said, the Austin American-Statesman reported Wednesday.
"It's a pretty significant issue," said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, chief of the emergency department at University Medical Center at Brackenridge, which has the busiest ERs in the area.
Solutions include referring some frequent users to mental health programs or primary care doctors for future care, Ziebell said.
"They have a variety of complaints," he said. With mental illness, "a lot of anxiety manifests as chest pain."
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We can provide health care to everyone or we can pay exorbiant costs for emergency room visits that are covered by our taxes regardless. That won't change until we get our heads out of the sand and take care of people proactively.
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