McCain’s Health Care Architect: There Are No Uninsured Americans

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



McCain’s Health Care Architect: There Are No Uninsured Americans»

In an interview with the Dallas Morning News yesterday, John Goodman, the “Father of Health Savings Accounts” and architect of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health care plan, said the term “uninsured” is a misnomer because Americans have ER access. According to Goodman, “only people who are denied care are truly uninsured – everyone who gets care is effectively insured by some mechanism,” the paper states:

Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain’s health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

“So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care. “So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.”

Goodman’s analysis ireflects a radical view of the state of health care in this country. Uninsured Americans are less likely to seek health care and more likely to die because of a lack of insurance. A 2002 Institute of Medicine Report estimated 18,000 unnecessary adult deaths because of a lack of insurance. The Urban Institute estimated that 22,000 died in 2006 for the same reason. Goodman apparently thinks they were “effectively insured.”

In July 2007, President Bush offered similar commentary as Goodman:

I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

Not only is ER care the most expensive way to get health care, but it also does not provide dental care, eye exams, therapy, and routine check-ups. Moreover, the availability of good emergency room care is in decline. In 2006, 119 million visits were made to ERs, up from 90 million in 1996. At the same time, the number of hospital ERs dropped to fewer than 4,600, from nearly 4,900, causing wait times to also increase.

In the interview, Goodman slammed the “worthless statistics that people fling around in vacuous editorials and pointless debates,” about the number of uninsured.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/28/mccain-health-care-emergency-room/

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. I told my husband about that as we went to bed last night. It's been 6 years since we've seen a GP

and we laughed and laughed...

I hope hope hope wish wish wish they would use this against McCain.

[phantom power]

2. Additionally, most Republicans would love to kick uninsured people out of the ER.

Hippocratic oath or otherwise.

[OmahaBlueDog]

3. It reminds me of something Ross Perot said in the '92 debates

It was something along the lines of "It's not that America doesn't have a national health care system -- it has a bad one"

[Jim__]

4. Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.

But then, if you're slowly bleeding to death, is it at the discretion of the ER physician whether or not you're in need of "immediate care"?

[bobbolink]

14. Don't forget, they can also BILL you. MANY have been hounded for thousands of dollars,

when they have NOTHING.

I'm not going to worry about this one too much.... Actually, I think I'll HOPE that they keep peddling this shit.

Because there are millions of people on the edge who KNOW they don't have medical care, and KNOW the E.R. won't save them, and KNOW they will just be billed, who will then see them as the LIARS they are.

[angrycarpenter]

5. Our county

Just had to put on a one cent sales tax to keep the hospital from closing down. The bulk of our citizens are uninsured and our visits to the emergency room just about drove our little hospital out of business.

The horrible thing about it is that McCain would be against the sales tax increase and bailout of our hospital.

[Median Democrat]

6. Relying On ER Will Result In Further Closure of ERs and Hurt Disaster Readiness

The number of hospital emergency departments nationwide dropped to 3,833 in 2006 from 4,019 a decade earlier. This will lead to a continued decline in healthcare, and harm our National Security in the event of another terrorist attack or a natural disaster. Typical Republican policy-making.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/07/MN8N1268D3.DTL

/snip

Hospital emergency departments, typically the medical providers of last resort, are becoming the only option for insured as well as uninsured people who are unable to get care
elsewhere, leading to a record rise in emergency room visits over the past decade, a federal government report found.

Emergency room visits jumped more than 32 percent from 90.3 million in 1996 to 119 million in 2006, the most recent year statistics are available, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The uninsured have long been more frequent users of (emergency rooms). That's not new. What's new is the rise ... in frequency in visits, and that's occurring in the insured," said Dr. Stephen Pitts, author of the report and a CDC fellow who teaches emergency medicine at Emory University's School of Medicine.

* * *
The rise in emergency room visits comes at a time when the number of hospital emergency departments nationwide dropped to 3,833 in 2006 from 4,019 a decade earlier.

That decrease puts added pressure on the remaining emergency rooms. And California has the lowest percentage of emergency departments per capita - 6.12 per 1 million people, according to Dr. Billy Mallon, president of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

/snip

The stupidity of McCain's health care advisor is breathtaking. We will eliminate the healthcare problem by simply defining it away? Worse, we will encourage people to simply rely on Emergency Rooms?

[pnwmom]

10. And result in a slew of more bankruptcies, as people struggle to pay for

emergency room care.

[w8liftinglady]

7. as a nurse in a rural hospital,our ER volume has increased 4-fold.

there are patients who have to wait days for a bed.The larger city hospitals are full...unusual for August-usually our slow time of year.There are SO MANY people without access to healthcare that when they do get sick enough to come to an ER,their problems are severe and multifactorial.ERs should not be primary care clinics.They weren't designed that way.There is no continuity.You are on your own when it comes to prescriptions,refills,etc.

[radfringe]

8. great!

does that makes my partner "healthcare challenged"?

[hfojvt]

9. what is McCain's policy again?

Non-refundable tax credits? Something that will not help alot of poorer people who do not pay taxes. But it's the Republican answer to every problem - more tax cuts.

By the way Mr. McCain, the $3258.96 I pay for health insurance is already tax free. As my pay stub from March says YTD Gross earnings $3985.45. YTD taxable earnings $3147.09. YTD FICA earnings $3306.5. I don't even pay FICA taxes on that money.

I have heard that McCain suggests that the $3258.96 that my employer pays for health insurance for me should be added to my income so I can pay taxes on it.

[Median Democrat]

11. Well, CBS Picked Up On This...

Regarding McCain's healthcare advisor:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/28/politics/horserace/entry4391954.shtml

[Contrary1]

12. That's great news!

So those folks, formerly described in error as "uninsured", can just drop by their local ER for chemo and organ transplants.

Yea!!!!

[bobbolink]

15. I'll say it again... I think it's great McCain said this... it will be a major disconnect for a lot

of people.

I hope we keep it afloat!

[Javaman]

13. "everyone who gets care is effectively insured by some mechanism"

wow, just wow.