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What concerns me is people that will feel they are getting free health insurance (health care) andd will start going to the doctor for every sniffle, when they didn't go to the doctor for anything before.
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People already do this.....is called the emergency room. Then they ***** and moan because the have to spend 6-8 hours waiting on results. This is a REAL drain on the system, and costs the hospitals a considerable amount of money. Why? Because if you come in complaining about a cough and chest pain, even if you just have a cold, your going to get an ECG, chest Xray, and a series of blood and urine tests. Why, when it's just a cold? Because if you walk out the door, and drop dead, and your family decides to sue the hospital/doctor/health care worker (because remember: we have all the money
), we have to be able to show that those things were not an issue prior to the patient leaving the hospital. NOT because we get 'more money' for doing 'unnecessary tests', as some people might think. As a matter of fact, most of those tests will go unpaid for as they are done on nonissured or under insured patients, and the hospital will have to end up eating the cost.
There are free clinics in the area, but folks still use the emergency room as a primary source of treatment because they feel they will be seen & treated faster.....after all, that's how it is on TV, right?
I remember a discussion once between an ER physician and a patient....the patient was complaining about how long it was taking to get results back, and the doctor was trying to explain to her that her head cold wasn't a real emergency (but she was treated anyway). This just made her more irate and pissy, and the ER doc finally spilled it out......"What you have isn't an emergency", to which she replied "Uh Uh, emergency means you just get seen right away......."
What a world, what a world..................