My point flew right over your head.
Read again. If not sufficient, wash, rinse, repeat.
It's OK, you don't need to get it, being in Syracuse, the smarter voters of NY have decided to expand Medicaid and save you from your own ignorance.
Texas wasn't so lucky, but you are home free.
How long does it take to get Medicaid?
Generally, local districts must determine if you are eligible and send a letter notifying you if your application has been accepted or denied within 45 days of the date of your application.
http://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/#county
Doesn't look like the expansion has shaved off any of the wait time. I am guessing after the 45 days your notice will say your coverage will begin on the first of the following month. Care to enlighten me as to how he would have faired any better coming to NY?
I've explained it in the post that went over your head in the first place. If your hospital is already borderline broke with unreimbursed ER bills, it can't afford to hospitalize people who are unlikely to pay.
Well, if you are driven by data, you won't mind sharing it with us, now will you?
You are the one making the claim, so the onus lies on you.
More importantly, not everything can be accurately gauged by 'data'. Real life experiences are often more important. In this case, a lot of times, uninsured people themselves refuse many treatments, because of the costs involved.
I've said it many times that it is a crying shame that America is the only industrialized country in the world where citizens do not have universal health coverage. That too which is supposedly the richest nation in the world. But to make this particular ebola case into a political issue is rather lame.
No, not anecdotes. You are the one making assumption that a hospital will treat an uninsured person significantly differently. It is just your opinion.OK, so you got anecdotes. OK, just checking.
Politics have consequences. Public health included.
No, not anecdotes. You are the one making assumption that a hospital will treat an uninsured person significantly differently. It is just your opinion.
Like I said, the heath care system (if it can be called that) in America is a shambles on so many levels. But to link politics with this ebola case just is not right
You have to be a moron to believe that lack of Medicaid expansion had nothing to do with Ebola patients not getting care. You treat patients different if you assume you are getting paid vs if you assume you are taking a loss. Then you do the bare minimum the law requires, which is get the patient stable enough and out the door.
"Hospitals will provide care" but there is a difference between "care" that barely satisfies EMTALA, and discharges you in stable condition, vs care that aims to actually find out what's wrong with you and provide curative treatment. This Republican naivete that ER's are a replacement for universal health insurance is just plain folly.
Well, if you are driven by data, you won't mind sharing it with us, now will you?
Hospital will treat you differently if they think you can pay or have insurance as opposed to if you don't.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/sto...-demand-payment-upfront-from-er-patients.aspx
The simple fact is that the hospital didn't treat him as an Ebola patient because they didn't recognize him as one.
It has nothing to do the ACA/Medicaid or any other govt policy.
Fern
You don't think lack of Medicaid expansion creates an incentive to send indigent ER patients home with as little care as can be legally justified?
Why do you keep insisting that Thomas Eric Duncan was poor or indigent?
And as far as hospitals not wanting to take a loss on treating patients, many reimbursements under Medicaid/Medicare are so low a hospital's loss is ensured for those patients.
Fern
OK, so you got anecdotes. OK, just checking.
Politics have consequences. Public health included.
Not really. Like all other organizations, hospitals are free to not accept Medicare or Medicaid if it is unprofitable. They don't do this. So either they are really bad at accounting, or Medicare and Medicaid make them money.
Now would be a good time to say something like "Gee I feel really strongly about having more people covered but I got a little carried away and now I realize that no one has been harmed by ebola due to lack of treatment due to insurance. Dumb moment, sorry."
The question is why they didn't recognize it. When someone is only presenting a fever, recognizing Ebola is not easy, and holding a patient for observation in quarantine is expensive to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per day. If that expense is money you will likely never recover, then the simplest thing to do is to give someone a medicine for their fever and get them out the door.It is really that simple.
senseamp - the two links you posted do not have relevance to the point you have been trying to make in this thread.
We should. We don't need disease ridden red-staters coming to our shores.
They can go bust, but if someone goes to the ER they must, by law, be treated. That does not mean that everyone gets all the trimmings, nor does it mean you won't get billed, but if someone comes in and the staff believes there's Ebola in the works no one is going to try to figure out how to put that person back on the street. It's absolutely ridiculous.
The question is why they didn't recognize it. When someone is only presenting a fever, recognizing Ebola is not easy, and holding a patient for observation in quarantine is expensive to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per day. If that expense is money you will likely never recover, then the simplest thing to do is to give someone a medicine for their fever and get them out the door.
Individuals and institutions respond to incentives.
Not sure why this is so shocking, I thought conservatives understood markets. Expanding Medicaid increases the likelihood that hospital will get paid for its services, which creates different incentive than just telling them they must stabilize someone at their own expense before kicking them out.