Mitt Romney, On 60 Minutes, Cites Emergency Room As Health Care Option For Uninsured

[Grammy23]

51. Scott Pelley reminded Romney

that going to the ER is the most expensive way to deal with medical care. Yes, in some circumstances, the ER is the way to handle the problem. If you're having a heart attack (Romney's example), you damn well better get to the ER as fast as you can. But he never addressed the every day routine health issues that people face. Going to the ER is most definitely the wrong way to handle that and could result in less than optimum care and cost more. I am not dissing the ER docs. I think many of them do heroic work, pulling some of us back from the brink of death. That is one of the things they do best! But when you've got a head cold or the flu, they are not your best option. And if you need follow-up (such as a recheck for in infection or to remove stitches), the ER is not the best way to handle that.

Mr. Romney is really, really out of the loop when it comes to what we should do about our health care problems. Suggesting that going to the ER is the appropriate way to handle routine problems is irresponsible. Of course, people don't get turned away but the care they get is the most expensive way to deliver that care. Telling a person with no insurance and NO MONEY to go to an urgent care center is also bad advice. In that case, with no money, they often put off getting checked until they are MUCH sicker and then go to the ER (where they WILL get care) but at the most expensive rate since they are sicker.

Romney scares me with his smooth talk and bland words that show he has no real dept of understanding. And the REALLY scary part is that he appears to be this lacking in understanding on MANY subjects. Foreign policy, health care, needs of our poor and near poor, the middle class, the military. For the folks in the upper classes, he has a clear vision of THEIR needs. The rest of us.....not so much.