Newly insured expected to crowd ERs | The Columbus Dispatch

Oh no...it's bad enough the drive-through lanes at Rally's are crowded at

midnight while I'm trying to get my fast food junk. I guess now my orders

will be...burger..fries...prescript ions...what a crazy world.

You mean health care will necessarily be rationed? Why didn't someone raise this issue when the health care plan was being debated? Oh, wait. They did. They were ignored.

Thank you Mr. Obama for long lines, inferior care, and rationing of health care. OBAMACARE hits the street.

It's a real problem, but not one caused by the healthcare bill. I'll give you two causes I experienced first hand as a young, undecided honor student at OSU: 1) They do everything they can to scare you out of pre-med as a major. 2) The rigors and abuses of the internship and residency periods also work to scare away students. Maybe these things "weed" down the candidates to only the most dedicated, but it might just weed the list down to those most pressured by parents and those going into the more lucrative specialties? It's a lot to ask to make $125K/ year.

Dannawally wrote:

You mean health care will necessarily be rationed? Why didn't someone raise this issue when the health care plan was being debated? Oh, wait. They did. They were ignored.

So the right thing to do is ration care based on income with the lower middle class and those with chonic pre-existing conditions being the losers? Why not ration it based on age or the month you were born? What we really need is less lawyers, more doctors.

PC on the TEE wrote:

Thank you Mr. Obama for long lines, inferior care, and rationing of health care. OBAMACARE hits the street.

The new health care bill is so good it's going to make my house payment for me.

PC on the TEE wrote:

Thank you Mr. Obama for long lines, inferior care, and rationing of health care. OBAMACARE hits the street.

Would you support a bill that cut off medicare for 15% of the elderly? We could decide who to cut off based on their net worth. Those with nothing would still be covered, and those with nice nest eggs would still be covered. The 15 to 30 percentiles of worth could be cut off. That would eliminate the problem in almost the same manner the old system hid this issue - by rationing the care of the lower middle class.

JAG-
Maybe when Congress was working on the Health Care bill they should have thought about the shortage of Doctors and addressed that in the bill (they seemed to address every other thing that was remotely related to health care). They knew then they had a shortage or primary care docs, but instead they just passed what they thought was right.
This (Health Care) bill is driving hirer premiums. Our October renewal came back at over a 30% increase and broker said the minimum increase he has saw over last 60 days (for the same plan) was 12%.
Health care has a lot of messes (like how can the exact same procedure cost $650 at location a and only $250 at location B) but the HC Bill is screwing things up royally. This is going to get really bad.

charlie wrote:

The con job is that there will be cost savings. Huge influx of newly insured patients will involve a huge increase in costs and all their phony projections about savings are lies. Whenever you increase costs, you decrease jobs. This will mean more subsidized patients getting healthcare paid for by others running to the Er for expensive care.

Well said. Working in various forms of health care all of my life, I actually had agreed with Obama during his speeches before he was elected. I didn't vote for him because I do not believe government is the answer for preventative care. Aside from genetics, and even that can be reduced, it shouldn't take the tax payers money to learn to eat right and exercise in this country. Take a look at why people actually go to the ER. I see it everyday in Worker's Comp claims.

PSL_Holder wrote:

JAG-
Maybe when Congress was working on the Health Care bill they should have thought about the shortage of Doctors and addressed that in the bill (they seemed to address every other thing that was remotely related to health care). They knew then they had a shortage or primary care docs, but instead they just passed what they thought was right.
This (Health Care) bill is driving hirer premiums. Our October renewal came back at over a 30% increase and broker said the minimum increase he has saw over last 60 days (for the same plan) was 12%.
Health care has a lot of messes (like how can the exact same procedure cost $650 at location a and only $250 at location B) but the HC Bill is screwing things up royally. This is going to get really bad.

On this issue, the bill simply exchanged one problem for another. I agree with you. But it got pre-existing conditions covered, and outlawed some of the questionable tactics the insurance companies used to employ like lifetime coverage limits. Nobody said the HCB would be the final solution. I see it as a stop-gap along the way to what is inevitable. There is a reason every modern nation progressed to univeral healthcare. It's not because they love socialism, it's because it made sense. The U.S. isn't an innovator out in front of a healthcare revolution, we're the last holdout after the rest of the world moved on to something else.

Call me nuts if you want. Sit down with someone from another developed country and listen to them laugh at this issue.

This is the job creation opportunity that was mentioned. The industry needs to respond to the demands of it's customer base, not vice versa.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in no way will guarantee you any "health care" or access to "health care". It is little more than an insurance policy and worth about as much as the paper it is written on...kind of like the Federal Reserve Note (dollar) is becoming.

With demand exceeding supply the quality of care will diminish. Your medical care may well be delivered by less qualified practitioners.

A few of the unintended and undisclosed consequences are starting to show up now. Lord knows what it will be like in a few years after the bureaucratic regulators get to work on it in full force.

Those who can afford it and appreciate quality care from an expert practitioner will seek help from a Private Practitioner out side the Obamacare realm.

The others will go to clinics the participate within the dictates and regulations of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

JPA8 wrote:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in no way will guarantee you any "health care" or access to "health care". It is little more than an insurance policy and worth about as much as the paper it is written on...kind of like the Federal Reserve Note (dollar) is becoming.
With demand exceeding supply the quality of care will diminish. Your medical care may well be delivered by less qualified practitioners.
A few of the unintended and undisclosed consequences are starting to show up now. Lord knows what it will be like in a few years after the bureaucratic regulators get to work on it in full force.

Lies! This hopey dopey health care bill will cure cancer and bring prosperity to all. It will even create good gubbermint jobs!

Everyone seems to be really good with numbers, like the cost of construction of roads and bridges. Maybe the number of sick people crawling to doctors and the ER won't really be known until it happens.The projections by experts are usually way off the mark. Let's wait and see and then tweak it where it needs to be tweaked.I'm betting it won't be as bad as some think,it never is.

JAG wrote:

Call me nuts if you want...

You're nuts!

owg59 wrote:

Everyone seems to be really good with numbers, like the cost of construction of roads and bridges. Maybe the number of sick people crawling to doctors and the ER won't really be known until it happens.The projections by experts are usually way off the mark. Let's wait and see and then tweak it where it needs to be tweaked.I'm betting it won't be as bad as some think,it never is.

You're right that the numbers by "experts" are usually way off, but when have you ever known them to be BETTER than projected?? Especially when gov't bureaucrats pushing their agendas are involved!

From the article:

"What people found (in Massachusetts) is that they may have coverage to afford health care" but they can't find a family doctor, Katz said.

This is the old Soviet style economy applied to US health care.

In the Soviet union, everyone had plenty of rubles and the goods were reasonably priced, there was just nothing to buy (except at a few US dollar only stores in Moscow).

Obama is following the Soviet example. Everyone has healthcare and it is reasonably priced, but there will be none to be had.

Nobody with an ounce of common sense should be surprised that this is the result of the health care bill. It was predicted by many economist - increased demand=reduced supply=higher costs. Those of us who work will be paying higher premiums and taxes. Those who don't work will get their healthcare the same as they do now - for free.
I know several who don't work by choice and a couple who have auto-immune disorders that have required anything from surgery to on-going medical treatment via drugs or outpatient care. Guess what - they have gotten just as good, if not better care at the cost of taxpayers than I can get for myself and my family. They get regular CAT scans, MRI's, blood work, etc. Do I care - no - I am getting the medical care that I need - but I get tired of hearing about people who don't get health care because I see just the opposite.