By Kate Snow, Janet Klein and Dustin Stephens
Rock Center
For Barbara Latasiewicz, home was a hospital room. The Poland native, who had cleaned homes in the Chicago area for 20 years, suffered a stroke while on the job in September 2009. An ambulance took her to Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital in Illinois.
"I was thinking that after a few days, that I'm just gonna get better," Latasiewicz told NBC’s Kate Snow through a translator in an interview airing April 25 at 9pm/8 c on Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Latasiewicz suffered paralysis on one side of her body, but eventually became well enough to leave the hospital. However, more than two years later, the 62-year-old was still in the hospital.
“She hasn’t needed to be in this acute facility for a long time,” said Richard Carroll, the hospital’s chief medical officer.
When asked about Latasiewicz’s more than two year stay at the hospital he oversees, Carroll said, “That’s really a function of how our health care system is working right now, which is it’s not working very well at all, particularly in cases like this.”
Carroll said that Latasiewicz belonged in a skilled nursing facility where she would receive a more appropriate rehabilitation, but she had no way to pay. Latasiewicz had no insurance and was an undocumented resident with no access to government safety-net programs like Medicaid. Without payment, no facility would take her.
NBC News
Barbara Latasiewicz
The end result? Latasiewicz stayed at La Grange. Her care cost the hospital $1.4 million. A skilled nursing facility would have been a fraction of the cost.
An NBC News investigation discovered that cases like Latasiewicz’s are not unusual, but the result of current health care policies and guidelines. They are known as “permanent patients” and are hidden in plain sight in hospital rooms across the country. That’s because under federal law, hospitals must treat any patient who needs emergency medical attention even if they have no way to pay. Nursing and rehab facilities are not required by law to do so. At the same time, hospitals cannot discharge a patient without a plan in place for his or her ongoing care. The result is patients stuck in the hospital in need of long-term care but with nowhere to go, large medical bills, and no way to pay – a cost that is usually covered at the hospital’s expense.
“It would be cheaper to take these patients and send them to the Ritz Carlton,” said Harvard University School of Public Health Professor Ashish Jha. “They could get room service all day, and that would be cheaper.”
Jha estimates there are tens of thousands of these patients stuck in the hospital with no clear place to go. Some stay an extra week, some months, and some like Latasiewicz even years. NBC News spoke with officials at dozens of hospitals across the country who confirmed housing patients who didn’t need to be there for extended periods.
Many patients are stuck because they have no money or insurance to pay for long-term care. Other patients may have insurance, but their medical needs are too complex for most skilled nursing facilities to accept. Then there are those in limbo at the hospital waiting sometimes for months to qualify for Medicaid. Once they’re approved, Medicaid will cover the nursing or rehab facility they need.
A spokesperson for the American Health Care Association which represents skilled nursing facilities says that the industry works with hospitals to find facilities for such hard-to-place patients.
According to data from the National Inpatient Sample database at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the problem of permanent patients appears to be on the rise. From 2005 to 2009, the last years for which data was available, uninsured hospital patients with no access to Medicare or Medicaid in need of long term care increased 20 percent.
NBC News
Garrick Amato
“Most of them are Americans,” Jha said. “And if they get hit by a bus, they get sick, they’re in this situation.”
Garrick Amato, 59, arrived at Banner Heart Hospital in Mesa, Ariz., after suffering a heart attack. A few days later, he was ready to leave the hospital for a rehab facility. However, Amato, who said he worked part-time at a local discount store, had no health insurance and no way to pay for his rehab.
“I guess no nursing home will take me cause I don’t have insurance,” Amato said.
Furthermore, as a single adult without dependent children, he did not qualify for Medicaid in Arizona. Amato spent most of March and much of April at the hospital. Banner Hospital eventually found charity care for him that placed him in a skilled nursing facility where he belonged.
Other patients linger in hospitals despite their best efforts to find charity care. Fatima Khydarova, a professor from Uzbekistan, has been at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., for more than two years. Khydarova arrived there after suffering an incapacitating stroke while visiting her grandchildren in New York. While Khydarova will never walk or talk again, doctors say she does not need to be in a hospital.
NBC News
Fatima Khydarova
“In a perfect world she should be either at home with her family caring for her or in a nursing home,” Maimonides CEO and President Pamela Brier said.
Khydarova’s grandchildren said that they cannot take care of their grandmother at their mother’s small apartment and at the same time make a living to support all of them.
“I’m working, I’m working.” said granddaughter Nigina Abdullaeva who works at a doctor’s office.
Dr. Jha of Harvard University says that the costs for treating permanent patients are passed on to other consumers through higher medical bills and insurance premiums.
“The bottom line is we’re all paying for it,” Jha said.
To mitigate the cost of these patients, some hospitals have paid out of their own funds to move them to skilled nursing facilities. Once there, the hospital could pay for their care for the rest of their lives.
“Hospitals don't want to widely advertise that they will pay for your care elsewhere,” Jha said. “But in select situations, they look, and they realize, instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars to keep the patient in the hospital, it's probably cheaper for them to send them somewhere else.”
Back in Illinois, case workers at La Grange Hospital also struggled for years to find a more appropriate medical facility for Latasiewicz. They eventually found one, but it was in her native Poland.
Wiping tears away from her eyes, Latasiewicz told Kate Snow through a translator that she did not want to leave. Latasiewicz lived in the United States for 20 years and has a son and grandchildren living nearby. However, her son, Peter Latasiewicz, said he could not take his mother into the small apartment he shares with his children and another family.
“I wouldn’t be able to provide as much help and support and care for her,” Peter Latasiewicz said, “she’s got a lot of medical conditions where she requires 24/7 care.”
The hospital eventually went to court for permission to send Barbara to the medical facility in Poland.
The hospital won and on March 1, Latasiewicz boarded a flight back to her native Poland.
In Brooklyn, Khydarova, the professor from Uzbekistan, remains at Maimonides and the hospital is still working hard to find a solution for her family
“She’s going to stay in the hospital unless we can find a spot for her,” CEO Brier said, “She could stay here potentially for the rest of her life.”
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the problem is not with doctors hospitals nurse etc.. it is with the insurance system. Healthcare should not cost so much that you need insurance to pay for it,except possibly in the most dire cases.If no one could afford to "pay" for healthcare with insurance..the price of health care would plummet. Would you spend 30000 dollars on your cat? very soon you will be able to...because your pet insurance will allow you to only pay the 20 copay.
People DO NOT want free healthcare. Let me repeat people DO NOT want free healthcare they only want some sort of plan that is affordable. I and a lot of my friends and ex coworkers who no longer have insurance don't spend all our time in emergency rooms, what we do is hope that whatever illness comes along can be cured over the counter. If you are self pay and go to the doctor you will only get the barest of care,no expensive tests run or even offered, a prescription and sent home is what you get. (self pay means you pay up front to see the doctor whatever the cost is.) The story above was about people who had gotten stuck in the system it is certainly not indicative of every and all situations. Also no where did I read about Mexicans or people freeloading. The Polish woman had worked here for 20 years cleaning houses one woman got sick while visiting her grandchildren and one man worked part time. All were older but not old enough to qualify for medicare. That is the gap Obama was wanting to fix the years between 19 and 64 were you don't qualify for medicaid and are not old enough for medicare.
Who trusts a health insurance company? They are just as apt to let you die as help you. They have calculators where you would expect their hearts to be. I'm really suprised that people don't get violent with health care insurance companies. I used to give them a month to pay my bills, for my kids, and then I sued them. I guess I got an asterisk next to my name because they started paying. Something has to change, but Obamacare is a colossal boondoggle.
B Conner you have the right answer. Medicare for all. vote dem this fall.
The United States is the only developed country without universal healthcare. Our health care is also the highest in the world. Medication that sells for a fraction in other countries costs hundreds and thousands here. The five happiest countries in the world are Scandinavian (read label Socialist). Was building the interstate highway system socialist? What about NASA?
Are we really still world leaders? The conflict between the two parties is asinine on both sides. The imbalance of wealth will sink this company and Putin will be correct when he said the United States will split into two countries by 2025.
Let's work together and forget the talking heads on TV
How will that work exactly, when there are rich and poor in all states? Will the rich move to the East and the poor to the West? Or will the poor be in the South while the rich are in the North?
I really wonder if the people that post here even believe their own ridiculous hyperbole, sometimes.
Well I definitely want the Tea Party in the other country. Preferably we could stack them all in Texas with Rick Perry as President. Of course he would have closed all the Planned Parenthood clinics by then, but no worries, their population would not outgrow the state even considering that the Tea party evangelicals don't use birth control. I'm told they're darn good at holding that ole aspirin between their knees if the need arises.
Lies of the GOP & Tea bagger and all the Alec corps ( WALMART ) that pay off the Politician. Its all about the Wealthy getting richer and the middle class getting poorer.....They don't want to help the poor, I do mean the poor not the lazy good for nothings...Who are the one's that leach off the taxpayer. The Wealthy: they get welfare both for themselves an for the Corps. ...But it seems that the Wealthy get away with it ..They steal billions and the few poor steals a few thousands. So what does the GOP want, is Screw the MIddle Class to get even with the few. As I say its the me me me and F everyone else.... The failures of the Republicans party trying to take away SS & Medicare & Health care for Woman so they can give their wealthy Blackmailers more money...To hell with the Poor and Needy. Let them freeze in the winter and stave the Old and Babies,let them die from bad water, do away with the EPA and thats what you'll have, just like all you Tea baggers want...You make me sick with your Me Me Me altitude. It just a matter of time before the masses raise up against you . Greedy and you all call yourself Christians, Christains. What a laugh: Wake up America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WAKE UP
Maez, you seriously need professional help. You need to check everything you have just spewed.. The Republican Party is nothing what you have ranted.
I hear envy, jealousy, just hateful things out of your mouth.
Maybe you need some free health care.
hehehee I get free health care you dam fool...and everything I said is the truth and you can take that to the ER...and where have you been hiding...Under a rock for 30 years......
Well Jean, let's check out what Maze had to say: "It's about the wealthy getting richer and the middle class getting poorer." TRUE. Republican Paul Ryan's budget deficit plan in Congress would lower the tax rates for the wealthy and would eliminate tax on investment income (the primary income of the wealthy) and would shift the tax burden to the middle class by eliminating deductions for mortgage interest, state income taxes and other yet to be specified tax deductions that primarily benefit the middle class. Next. "The wealthy steal billions and get away with it." TRUE. And they've been getting away with it for years. In a massive clean-up effort, the IRS is working with foreign countries to identify millionaire and billionaire US citizens who have been hiding trillions of dollars in offshore bank accounts to avoid having to pay tax on their investment income. "The GOP stance is to hell with the poor." TRUE. Republican Cantor in the House recently said we MUST shift the tax burden to the low and middle income taxpayers so we can lower the tax rates for the upper income householders who are (presumably) the job creators. This would potentially eliminate the value of the earned income credit that low-income households use to survive. Next. "And they call themselves Christians." TRUE. Exactly.
If our wonderful DC politician in chief would send the illegals packing we could save
hundreds of billions of dollars.. Ca is paying 80 billion alone in their state for the care
of illegals. They should all go home and learn to take care of themselves.. Allow their
own government to take care of them.
I agree, but the fact is that the majority of these patients are Americans. The main issue is that, unlike the rest of the civilized world, we have no proper national health insurance to handle this type of situation.
You can go into any hospital in this nation and get treated. Quit with the dramatics.
Homesick is exactly right. Sure, they can go to the hospital and get treated, but it'd be a heck of alot cheaper if there were outpatient clinics they could go to for their routine health needs without worrying about deportation. But oh well. Let's keep with our basic plan. Cut off our nose to spite our face.
No one should ever be denied healthcare because of inability to pay.
Charleston, sc
They aren't. Read up on EMTALA pal.
Just write the check yourself, maybe get a second job to help out more. Opps sorry you just want Me to pay as usual along with everything else . I am not your daddy Larry. Stop imposing on working people and using the government by proxy to confiscate thier labor. You have the right to get out your own wallet and pay for what you believe . Until then shut up.
For the record both parties are pimping this nation into the dustheap of history and all the entitlement whores cant get there fast enough.
And believe me, I wouldn't want you for my "Daddy." But I do want you to fork over your taxes. Any citizen of any civilized country is going to be paying taxes for things they don't agree with. Frankly, I think we can cut military spending by 75 percent and I strongly object to having my taxes going for defense spending that exceeds that amount. In essence, the far right is confiscating my labor to pay for something I don't believe in. The answer to that? Tough SH*T. And that's the same answer you get.
JFC I agree with you on the Daddy issue also agree on the so called defence spending issue. Right now I think most people are happy to let the entitlement pimps borrow trillions of dollars our children will need to repay. I guess if they do that then its ok with most people. All of us get the TS answer until we revolt,
You see it is the producers that hold the power and when they stop providing bad things happen to the masses fast. The pimps are pretty good a keeping the masses stupid and entertained with "bread and circus's" the longer they play the entitlement crowd the worse the reckoning will be. Don't you think we are heading into a disaster and need to live within our means?
Many Asian countries have elder neglect laws. Just as a parent is legally obligated to take care of his/her minor children, adult children are legally obligated to take care of their senior-aged parents. If we had a law like that, these adult children who refuse to take their parents could be arrested and heavily fined.
But this also illustrates the need for a proper national health insurance.
And for deporting illegal immigrants.
Homesick, Insurance is the answer...and I agree with your remark on the
illegals.. One just doesn't realize how costly these illegals have become.
They are the reason our cost is higher and many hospitals have closed.
illegal is just that illegal.
Great point only 70% of the black population is illegit and most dont know who the baby daddy is.
The facts dont make me racist.
Given my age I have been used a a whipping boy to pay for all the social programs that were supposed to make up for the crime of slavey that was commited by someone other than me. Things have just become worse all the way around. As early as 1930 most black americans lived in tradtional family units.
Stop borrowing money that our kids will have to pay for to support programs that dont work. Both parties are pimping us out and the entitlement whores lead the way to destuction.
What age group has played "whipping boy"? Just out of curiousity.
I think poor males who turned 21 in 1980, just in time for the affirmative action crowd to be in full swing, not only in education but in government employment as well. White women and certain minorities of any income level were given preference and poor white males were thown under the bus. Nobody cared then nobody cares now except I have two questions , Is the nation better off and now that we have a black president can we stop?
Well, sure. Whites hold 99% of all Fortune 500 CEO/COO jobs. White males are over 90% of Congress. Whites of both sexes are far and away richer than blacks and Hispanics. We have had a grand total of one non-white president. An oppressed minority, no doubt.
I indicated that POOR white males were made to suffer. The rich without regard to race or sex still enjoy the positions you mention. My point is that when it came time to address past crimes, the POOR white male was made to pay even though he did not receive any of the proceeds of those crimes. The rich still made it into Harvard or were selected as a Corporate President in daddy's company after a careful national search for the best qualified person. Nothing was taken from the rich who benifited from slavery of one form or another. Instead they found a whipping boy who had done nothing to deserve punishment, seems that nothing has changed.
Here is the sick part, minorities were happy to victimize the POOR white male. Kind of makes them just as bad as the rich white guy who committed crimes against them in the first place. Maybe worse, they should know better. Knowing all this why should POOR white people, and there are more of them than other groups, support the current machine?
My god...that is the most convoluted logic ever.
Buffaloes I will try to simplify;
You make no distiction between rich white people and poor white people.
The rich threw the poor white male under the bus (affirmative action).
The people who benefited firm affirmative action did not bother to realise that the villain (rich white guy) had transferred the punishment he had coming for past crimes to someone else (poor white guy).
I had hope that the victims of the original sin would have the perspective to see that they were part of a machine that punished the wrong guy. Did not seem to matter though, so much for the moral foundation of affirmative action.
The average cost to be a doctor is close to $230,000 and the average cost for malpractice insurance is about $40,000 a year. Now how many attorneys are employed by a hospital that have to be paid. Why did Obama not address those issues. There was another recent story about the difference of cost for the same surgery raging from $25,000 to $185,000 for the same thing with the same conditions. How about Obama care and the cost of pharmaceuticals. Those people should not be interned in a hospital and why would it take anybody more than a couple of weeks to figure out the best way to handle the situation.-
Much of the cost problem is that we need tort reform . Estimates are that a good percentage of tests done are unnecessary and only for liability reasons. To answer why Obamacare did not address tort reform is "politics". Lawyer groups are known as major supporters of the Democratic party so politicians decided to scapegoat insurance companies as the cost culprit, even though they are only middle men that need to pay for all the unnecessary care.
Much of the problem is folks demanding expensive tests or drugs that they do not need.
I strongly disagree....insurance companies aren't paying the portion of your bill that you aren't paying (after copays, etc). Insurance companies have contracts with hospitals, and those contracts specifically spell out how much insurance companies will pay for which procedure. Even after you pay your copay/20%, there's still an unpaid balance, sometimes as much as 40% of the original bill.
Hospitals are fine with what insurance companies are paying....so why are they crying that they're going broke? Because they're not. Insurance companies are squeezing hospitals AND the insured, and pocketing the rest.
Insurance companies will tell you that their premiums are high because they must protect themselves from lawsuits. Somehow...with them posting record profits for years on end, I think they're not in any danger of insolvency due to insurance settlements. They're cutting everyone they consider 'high risk' and raising premiums on the rest.
Politicians are no angels, but insurance companies have them beat hands down for dirty underhanded dealings.
Ultimately they become the taxpayers burden. So why not just cut to the chase and get them on a Federal program, it would be cheaper. Either way, the taxpayers foot the bill.
And we wonder why healthcare costs go up so much...people got to realize that when it boils down to it, we all have to do our part to contribute...you can't expect something for nothing and expect to be "taken care of" because you think its your "right" as a human to have healthcare/food/shelter...man, what would the rest of the animal kingdom do if they all expected the other animals to do their hunting and finding shelter/protection for them? They would all be dead but amazingly enough, they all do for themselves and keep theirselves alive because if they were relying on others to do their work for them, they would all be dead by now...We luckily function as a society and if you aren't contributing to it, then your leaching from it...and parasites often kill the organism they are leaching from...which is what is happening out our system now...
Last I heard, humans were considered somewhat higher on the food chain than say your average orangutan.
yeah but sadly... some people like Jennifer think "survival of the fittest" is the rule
You need food and water to survive, and you'll die a lot sooner without those than from any disease. Where are the screams for it is every citizens right to get these free? Oh, that's right. That is free to the same folks that want free Healthcare too.
t
I think a plane ticket to Poland only costs about $500.
Or Canada, or Europe where it is "soooo much better." Hey, trade winds are good this time of year.
I wonder how many of the postings here are hired to do this by Obama's democratic party. It seems that these posters are more interested in destroying any opposition to Obama Care than they are in supporting a position pertaining to the article. I hope the people both insured and uninsured will agree that the few cannot support the many. As the number of taxpayers decline and the number of beneficiaries increase it is bankrupting the system. All the rhetoric about the boomers breaking the system, is incorrect no, they supported to system with taxes. The use of SSI for everything under the sun and the borrowing of its funds by congress, covered by their worthless IOU's have bankrupted the system. To blame this on any political party is idiotic. Even in economics 101 we know that people using who are not contributing will soon kill the whole system. JCF 1362859, you seem to be the only poster who didn't understand that the illustrations drawn by cars ect, were not literal, but figurative. Please ask someone to explain things to you before you post. OK?
Or perhaps the connection was ludicrous and made no sense whatsover either literally or figuratively.
Oh and by the way Coogs. SSI is supplemental security income not Social Security. Maybe you should have someone "explain things to you before you post." Kay?
There is no easy solution to the problems. There is so much waste with treatments being done that are not necessary. I would expect a national system with politicians in control would only make things much worse given their track record for managing money.
The hospital's argument is based on a fallacy or incorrect premise, which specifically is that a tiny room at a hospital costs more than a tiny room at a skilled nursing facility, long term care facility, or Motel 6™ . . .
The hospital probably charges more for everything when a patient has no health care insurance, where for example to hospital might charge $150 for a regular strength Bayer® aspirin, except the hospital would use a generic Walmart® Equate® brand aspirin instead . . .
The reality for stable and reasonably healthy patients, a hospital is little more than the most expensive hotel on this planet, but the actual cost of providing the tiny room, meals, housecleaning, nursing, and occasional doctor visits is not great . . .
As explained in another recent MSNBC.com news report, hospitals can charge whatever they desire for patients who have no health care insurance, where as I recall the example was surgery to remove an appendix, with the price ranging from $1,500 to more than $182,000, where the median was $33,611, with half of the hospitals charging less but the other half charging more, where in this instance the hospital stays were fewer than four days . . .
[SOURCE: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11359193-182000-for-appendix-removal-why-hospital-bills-vary-widely?lite ]
Explained another way, the real cost to the hospital is the potentially lost revenue that could be generated if the room were available for use by patients who have health care insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, or private) at a time when the hospital was operating at full capacity, where a not entirely abstruse analogy, metaphor, or simile is what happens when a taxi company has 100 taxis but one of the taxis is parked all the time, since a passenger is using it as a dwelling . . .
So, instead of having 100 taxis earning fares, the company has 99 taxis, and while the cost of the parked taxi actually is no more than the cost of the vehicle and a bit of occasional washing and waxing, it is the lost fares that are the problem . . .
And for reference the "1.4 million dollars" is the cost of keeping the meter on the taxi 24x7 at the highest rate, which is a bit nonsensical at the least, because a taxi and a reasonable amount of maintenance and so forth does not cost $1.4 million dollars every two years . . .
In other words, this is yet another instance of sneaky weasel hospital whining about not being able to screw all the people all the time as royally as hospitals would prefer, really . . .
Really! :-o
Sigh...I am so tired of the right wings are wrong and the lefty's are wrong. No one wants to look at the truth!! Both sides are wrong. We have to come to a compromise.
1) We can not just cover everyone in the whole country, Illegal immigrants & any visiting foreigners. We would have to tax ourselves at almost a 75% rate. We might have health care, but we would all live in cardboard boxes. Are you willing to do that? I think not.
2) If we went to a total Government health care and Zero non-profit Healthcare, Hospitals would go out of business. You have to pay the Doctors. If you don't, you will not be able to find people to become doctors. There will only be a small amount of Doctors and huge amounts of patients. If there are no doctors, YOU can not get treated, hence rationed care.
3) If there is no for profit Pharma, then there will not be new meds to make us live longer. If we have no more meds to make us live longer, guess what? We will start dieing off at younger ages. Especially as new cancers and deceases surface. Are you ready to just die younger? Of course not. We all want to live longer even if we are trapped in a wheel chair.
Even if we agree to all the above, it will never work. we the people have let our Government get so out of hand. even if we start right now by demanding that they start reigning in the cost of all the crap we cover now, it will not happen. We have given the Government such free reign with our money. It would take a revolt to change the way things are. We the people have let BIG BIZ control our Government and looked the other way. We told ourselves, "As long as it does not effect me, I don't care". Well, now it does effect all of us!!!
If this was a perfect world we could take care of everyone in it. But that is not the case. The rich are not going to pay for the poor or middle class to get the same things as they do. If you say that we should take money from the rich to pay for it then you would have to say the the middle class would have to do the same. So then you take everyone's money to basically cover the people who can not or will not work. So what does that leave us? With a socialist country that will bankrupt it's self, due that there would be no body's money left. And trust me the Rich would move out of the country & leave the rest of us to die. Then they get to come back and rule what is left.
Once we can rain in the government and get spending under control we can get back to taking care of the people as it was always intended. We have to put regulations back in to the business world to cap how much a company can profit. That has been the biggest down fall for our country. We have let Profits rule everything to the point we do not want to do the right thing anymore.
You have to be realistic about life. We are not going to live forever and if you are past 65 then you know it is coming sooner than later. What kind of life do you have if you can't see, can't hear & can't wipe your self? We have to think of our country's future and our children's future.
If you are really worried for the future of our country & our children's, then lets change our government!! Start demanding real change with our politicians!!! Stop letting this be a party thing. They both are corrupt!! Stop believing what each party is saying & think for ourselves!!
For those that keep saying that there can not be a third party think again. The 2 parties, do not want to even give a third party a though. They know that that would be the end of their control on our Government. Look at what Ron Paul Really stands for. Not by listening to what the 2 main parties tell you, but what he really says and believes in. Go to his website and to the unaired 60 Min interview. Are all his ideas spot on? No, but he is for the people. And he is willing to compromise to get things done and to make things better for it's PEOPLE!!! Do not believe what the 2 main parties tell you about him. Yes he wants Federal Depts closed down, but only to give that control over to the states that know better what their states and the people need. The Federal Government has been out of control for a long time.
Sorry this has turned into a book. I just want to see our Country come back together & make us great again. And it would not hurt that we love one another JUST a little bit more...
Peace and Love!!!
Sorry. Way way too long.
Your rambling simply hides the fact you don't have a clue.
Did you even READ what you wrote??
How many of you so-called experts on the health-care crisis posting on this blog actually know when the first health insurance was offered in the US? (No fair looking it up!) And how many of you actually know the profits seen by health-care insurance companies over the past few decades? (No fair looking it up!)
I've lived in Arizona for over four decades, and have always worked. Never got into the sunbathing routine because I was always too busy working. I pay close to 40% of my income to state and federal taxes because I am single, and hey, when you only make $36,000 a year, 40% out of it really adds up.
Now I have cancer on my eyelid and it has put me out of work. Can't convert my old insurance to COBRA because the policy had less than 20 people on it (thank you Reagan). I can't get state funded Medicaid despite over 40 years of paying state taxes (thank you Republican governor), and certainly don't qualify for federal aide.
To those of you who feel health-care is not a right in a civilized country, go back and take a look at history. Doctors didn't live wealthy lifestyles like they do now . . .
YOU ARE CLUELESS BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR HISTORY, YOU DON'T KNOW THE HISTORY BEHIND HEALTH-CARE INSURANCE IN THE COUNTRY, AND I SERIOUSLY DOUBT YOU BOTHER TO TRACK THE PROFITS OF THE INSURANCE COMPANIES!
I hope all of you who feel health-care is not a human right, is not part of being the greatest country on this planet, find yourself in far worse situations than anyone in this article - karma - you've earned it; christian - you've reaped what you've sowed and do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.
But you see it will never happen to them. Or if it does, there are a few who say they'll shoot themselves if they can't pay for their health care. Yeah right. They'll be the first ones to take the treatment, incur the costs and then file for medical bankrupty. The system is broken. We finally had a Congress and a President who were brave enough to attempt to fix it. Obamacare is not perfect. But we have two ways to go. Obamacare or universal health care.
I think it's great that Illinois hospitals don't dump their patients who are no longer accutely ill on the street if they have no where else to go. Why is it that California, particularly LA drops off their indigent patients on "skid row" if they are in the same situation as the people in this article?
They don't 'drop them on "skid row" '.....they are discharged to shelters, etc....those patients AGREE to be discharged - they were probably homeless before their hospital stay, and they're feeling better, and wish to go back 'home'.
We see this a lot in PA....homeless people go to the ER as soon as the first cold weather hits (they complain to chest pain, because it automatically gets you a stay in rehab) and because they are 'homeless' and refuse to be discharged to a shelter, they must stay at the rehab...which they do until the warm weather returns.
Crazy? You bet. Its freaky crazy to walk through certain nursing facilities and see perfectly healthy men just hangin' out playing cards. In a few cases, some have been caught buying heroin from their friends who 'visit' them while they 'recover'.
Its a racket....but you better be sure that if there was some way to 'dump' these bozos, they sure would.
Just one simple comment. The original reason the wealthy used to fund "charity clinics and hospital wards" was, in itself benificial to the wealthy... because if the poor were allowed to remain ill then the wealthy would have no one to do the actual physical and/or menial "work" required to sustain their lifestyles, and there would be no way to control the spread of illnesses from the poor to their wealthy employers. If we go to a system of denying the poor healthcare then contagious illnesses would have the ability to devistate the general population as a result. THAT IS THE TICKET TO A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY LIFE STYLE. Do you think the resurgence of TB is becoming an issue? Try denying healthcare, basic healthcare to millions who could come down with flu, malaria, AIDS, venerial dieases like syphylis, there's just too many to mention here. By taking care of the BASIC HEALTH CARE of the poor (all poor) we as a society are helping to ensure our own health safety. (Unless you want to go shoping at the grocery store and have some poor person who was denied health care that has TB cough all over you or the food you will purchase to eat some day) I don't know the solution, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine the result of denying basic healthcare to people. We will all as a society suffer. Keeping that in mind, stop ripping each others comments apart and ignore the bad stuff and focus on some of the good ideas that have been brought up. There is no "Right Answer" right now. We as a country need to focus on the goal of good health for all, for the good of all. No more negitivity, lets hear solutions, ideas, any ideas, put your suggestions out there on how to make this a better system. with the multi millions of people out there SOME of you have good ideas lets hear them.
I agree there is no "right answer to everything" what you are talking about is the business of the public health service, they along with the CDC and such are the ones who implement plans to prevent communicable diseases and ensure clean water..that is basic public health care..it is a bad deal when we dont have clean water and sewage removal..these are the most important healthcare items there are..if you dont think so visit somewhere that doesnt have these services
I haven't read all 900+ messages, but I find it interesting that no one (maybe) has addressed the "start" of life in this discussion. I work in a pediatric hospital in a large metropolitan area. There are many cases where everything is done to save the life of a patient that won't be able to function in any capacity other than to lay on a bed, or they have many medical issues as they grow.
In Canada we have a great single payer system, not perfect but miles ahead of the US overall.
We complain about the costs and the taxes that are higher, but if you are sick you get help on a priority basis and no one loses their house because of it. Malpractice is much less and overall outcomes are better than the US.
My father in law had heart failure. The last 6 weeks were spent in Hospital, much of it in cardiac intensive care. It was his wish to be recussitated and even though he had already lived 2 years longer than the average the staff did everything they could to save him. This included a replacement $40000.00 defibrillator/pacemaker installed a week before he passed. A doctor friend of mine told me that his care would have cost the Canadian healthcare system $6-700000.00. In the US well over a million. (He graduated Johns Hopkins)
My wife's grandmother in the States was drained of $700,000.00 during the last 5 years of her life paying for her health care. My father in law's care cost him nothing more than a few % more in taxes. No Stress.
So you nay sayers, you death panel fearmongers really have nothing to worry about except your obscene profits.
So much of the money in the US medical system goes to paper pushing. The increase in clerical positions is five times that of doctors in the US system since Nixon.
Canada spends 10% of gdp on healthcare. The US spends 15.3%
The US medical/pharma lobby has great power and frankly I don't have much hope for the US to join the rest of the industrialized world and take care of its people and not exploiting them.
Jesus would take care of them.
(The funeral is Thursday)
They have no money to pay for their hospital care.. How in the world r they gonna pay for health insur????
Obamacare is not the answer........
blood test before getting a welfare check we aqlready get one when we hire on this way it kinda levels the playing fielk
It's easy to discuss Healthcare as a Right or Privledge. However, does your access to Healthcare give you the Right to sue any medical provider for just about any reason? Is it the responsibilty for the government to pay for your Healthcare when you smoked your way to heart disease, lung disease and cancer? What about drinking your way to liver and organ failure? Or eating your way into diabetes and obesity?
Before you ask for Healthcare for all, are you willing to pay for the preventable damage that others do to their bodies?
Physicians, Nurses and Hospitals deserve to be compensated for the services they provide, and unfortunately the majority of costs go to cover medical malpractice. While some claims are justified, the majority are not. Fix the legal system, and the rest will fall into place!
When the hospital says it costs them $1.4 million, they mean that's how much they would have been paid from an insured patient over the same period (opportunity cost only). In reality, it probably cost them less than $50K for food, utilities, materials and labor, since she just requires some feeding, bathing, pills and an occasional check up.
Solution - build a nursing facility or buy a nearby hotel (and convert it) to recoup those costs and likely more so. So I totally agree with that previous poster who also came up with a similar idea - good call.