CFP:
Obamacare Coined Older “Units” Seen To Last At The ER.
As an older person, going to an ER room in Northern Virginia is an exercise in costly futility unless you are on death’s door or are prepared to wait for endless hours while younger people are being treated for colds, high fever, bleeding fingers and toes, and other accidents which occur in the exercise of our daily human lives.
Few Americans know or care that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 or Obamacare had labeled those over a certain age as “units.” If patients are young, they probably think themselves immortal – they would never get old, therefore such “unit” labeling does not apply to them. The stark realization hits you like a ton of bricks – you have become an older “unit” that can be ignored because government formulas deemed your utility to society too close to zero.
Most hospitals in NOVA post on an electronic board the number of minutes a patient must wait before they are triaged and/or seen in an ER. That may appear comforting and caring about one’s health and time until you actually set foot in the ER and reality replaces clever and deceptive advertising.
I had to go to our local ER this week. After the initial data and insurance screening, triage, and waiting for three hours to be placed in a room and to be seen, I decided to leave.
The waiting room, triaged by two people speaking English with heavy accents, kept getting more crowded with illegal aliens who did not speak English and required a translator in their respective dialects. Over and over I heard the question, “Do you speak English,” and calls made over the loudspeaker to a phone translator or to a hospital employee who spoke that language. It was a veritable tower of Babel.
I felt alone and lost in a sea of people with sick children who could have been seen quickly and much cheaper by a local Emergicare doctor, while my chest was hurting like hell and needed immediate attention.
It is sad that, after paying half of my income in taxes and being forced to purchase three medical insurance premiums, I cannot get medical care in my own country. Illegals flood the emergency rooms in northern Virginia. As human beings, they have a right to be treated too but must I pay for them and must my medical care become secondary and tertiary to their needs? more here
No, they don’t have a right to be treated in this country! However, they probably don’t have a right to be treated in their own shithole country either, one that they helped to create and perpetuate!
I knew a nurse at Alexandria Hospital ER (30+ years ago) who claimed that they (hospital staff) allowed patients to die if they *LOOKED* indigent or old.
The New Hospital (Alexandria or Arlington – I don’t remember) was built without an ER so as not to consume too many resources – ERs had to take ALL comers, regardless of their ability (or desire) to pay.
I’m sure it’s worse now.
izlamo delenda est …
Here in the Great white north, after waiting for hours before a doctor looks at you, most of the doctors ignore what you tell them or what the monitors show them. Usually the only times I get anybody to look at what is going on is if there is an internist on duty.
One time I was waiting at the ER, a woman came in. She had surgery four days before and was told to go to the ER if the incision in her chest started to bleed. It was bleeding. Anyone looking at her could see it was bleeding. She waited four hours before a doctor saw her.
I doubt this story because anyone with acute chest pain, especially an “old unit”, should go to the head of the line.
I work in an ER in Virginia but not in the area described by the author. It is true we are essentially a clinic. People with no insurance and no intention on paying their bills come in for cold symptoms, STD checks, back pain, routine nausea and vomiting, etc. Foreigners come in with nothing to pay or Medicaid cards which really frosts me. And don’t get me started on patients who practice a particular religion who won’t allow a male to exam their wives or daughters. I was so frustrated one night when a patient insisted his wife have an EKG done by a female that I said, “This is how we do things in America.” He finally yielded. The patients who will never pay or the foreigners are the most demanding patients you will ever encounter. I can go on and on but it is a new year.
Capitalism will fix this. It is government regulation over the past 60 years that has led to the current mix of generally qualified caretakers but very inefficient systems. Urgent care clinics are growing as a more efficient alternative for those without life-threatening conditions. Number of healthcare professionals will grow – if the conditions welcome them instead of appearing so antagonistic.
Capitalism will fix this – but government has to take the steps to simply remove the roadblocks it has created.
As an aged person I have never had to wait to get put in an ER room in innova or novant hospitals in northern va. Seen by doctor immediately and then it slows way down. Test requested by doctors end up taking 2 to 3 hours and results with doctor actor showing back up to go over results take another 2 to 3 hours. Add another 2 to 4 hours if you need to be admitted. It becomes an all day affair. I guess once they get you in a bed and hook you up, there is no need to worry about you.
Will calling 911 get you better attention?
Translate the word “unit”. It means an older person who is likely a republican.
A Nurse in the ER at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago told me that if you come in an ambulance you get taken in to a room right away — bypass the waiting room. The EMTs have to get their ambulance back in service ASAP and can’t leave until the patient is taken in. Some groups who use the ER as their personal,walk in clinic know this and call 911 to get that ride to the hospital. I don’t know if/how an EMT would be able to separate the real emergency from the scam. I had to use an ambulance once and got a bill for $1,000. I’m sure the scammers are on Medicaid and pay nothing.
The other problem is that with the influx of Hispanics, hospitals give priority to Spanish speaking ability ahead of skill, education and experience. The result is ER staff that you can’t understand and who don’t know how to treat you. My niece, whose son was badly burned, had to take charge of the ER staff and treat her son herself because staff didn’t know what to do. But, man could they speak Spanish!
We go to the private hospital. The public hospital is a mess.
Smudge: I have found that to be true. My experience is that they see you in the real world in the condition that brought you to the ER. I have found the EMT’s to be great advocates.
BTW, you pay for ambulance rides here. It may not cover the whole cost but it probably cuts down on the people looking for free rides. However, I suppose the indigent don’t pay when all is said and done.
Shaw, George B. — Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide: To Socialism and Capitalism, New York: NY, Brentano (1928) p. 670
Old people apparently lack industry.
I’ve told my children if they find me on the floor spazzing out or what ever to leave me alone– God has called me home and I don’t want to be late. I’m an old man- a widower of many years and I’m ready to see my wife again in God’s presence to rejoice and praise Him. :)For the trumpet will sound-the angel will shout and we will ascend up to meet the Lord in the air- Come quickly Lord….. 🙂 🙂
In the hospitals I was in so many times with my husband, if you arrive by ambulance you are taken in the back door and bypass the waiting room entirely. ER was mostly empty during the day but began to fill up by 5 PM every day and many were not emergencies but should have been seen in a less costly venue.
Cloward-Piven at work.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy
Husband had a knee replacement on 12/7. On the wall of the OR waiting room were several public service announcements. The largest by far was a list of various languages, I counted 30. One that stumped me was Karen, which I later discovered is Burmese. Of course they listed the usual Spanish, Mandarin, Farsi etc
When he was transferred to his room, he had 3 different nurses assigned to him over a 24 hr period. NOT ONE was American. One in particular was “filling in” from another floor, who not only barely spoke English, but jammed a pillow under the bend of his newly replaced knee, which was the exact opposite of where support was to be positioned.
Coming in by ambulance does not always work to get ahead of the line. We determine how serious the call from the ambulance is and if we think it is non urgent the patient is sent to triage area where he sits and waits like the rest of the patients. Oh sure, patients might gripe but when you come in by squad for a sore throat (no lie) you ain’t jumping in front of the line