Last week, in his latest pitch for "Health care reform" President Obama said, "Everything that can be said about health care has been said... by just about everyone."
With all due respect, Mr. President, the most important aspect of this discussion has not been addressed in any public forum, and we have no reason to believe it has been discussed in private top level meetings either.
In our previous post, we pointed out that the cost of requiring emergency rooms to treat everyone regardless of medical necessity results in a 3000% percent mark-up for minor care services obtained in emergency departments. Given the fact that 40-50%of patients seen in ER's only require minor care, we have to wonder how many uninsured we could cover at no additional cost if we simply stopped emergency room abuse. We have to wonder if pre-existing conditions could be covered with just some of the savings created by an end to mis-utilization of the emergency room.
I've attempted to contact the White House and my elected representatives with this point and have been (surprise, surprise) completely ignored. Please see my previous post (Health care, so easy a caveman can do it...) and forward it to everyone you know, especially elected officials and media.
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Point well taken. Read Robert Samuelson's opinon piece in today's Washington Post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031401389.html
It points out that providing universal coverage will not reduce ER visits. We need a more complete solution like the one proposed by Howell.
John Myers