There was a post about the cost of an Emergency Room visit

[rustydog]

that got me to thinking. I have worked in hospitals since 1979. I spend a lot of time in the ED and on patient floors controlling out of control people: under the influence, psych issues, family tradegy, domestic or gang violence.

I have worked with people who are very judgmental about those who come to the ed on medical coupons regularly or those who use the ER for their primary medical provider. yet these same people say nothing about the welfare that doctors take advantage of:
bringing themselves and family to the Ed for x-rays and tests that are never billed (taxpayers ultimately pick up the physicians free lunch) nurses, radiology staff etc who come in and get treatments and xrays that are free to them but we pay for.

Why is it that it is unacceptable for everyone to have what doctors and nursed get?

[wryter2000]

1. I'll bet most people don't know doctors do that n/t

n/t

[FSogol]

2. Doctors and nurses are workers also with difficult jobs.

I won't begrudge then whatever benefits they get.

[zbdent]

3. the people who vote against minimal health care coverage for all

have some of the best health care coverage available ... and it's paid for by the taxpayers ...

[eilen]

4. I've worked in hospitals too.

I haven't gotten free treatment, unless you want to count the xray in the ed I had to get since I was injured on the job transferring a patient that decided to go all dead weight on me, my back was injured so he would not hit the floor.

My family had to pay their inflated copay for the ED when my son fell out of a tree like everyone else.

Sometimes residents are treated at the ED, but then, they are students and employees of the university and covered under their health insurance.

Maybe you are referring to a private hospital. One local non-profit offers their own "health insurance" in which employees get treated there. I was treated once for free there, because I had been exposed to a patient with influenza. We are also treated for TB, given free chest xrays, when in the course of our jobs we are exposed. I think the hospital is acting in its own interest to prevent workers comp claims if they can help it.

In any profession like this, you will find some resentment. People are often non-compliant are in and out frequently and we are the ones that have to straighten out the utterly preventable crisis. After a while you wonder= why should I care more than the patient does?

[MuseRider]

5. I was a nurse

in the same hospital as my husband who was a doctor. Neither of us got free or discounted care ever. Now I was offered better appointment times but I would never take that, how dare they? The docs do get treated very specially and as a nurse I resented that just like all the other staff. When I got an apple as a Christmas bonus my very well paid husband got a bonus of a large 4 figures added to the very large hospital group bonus. What I never could understand was that there were hundreds of catalogs that would come to our house with a huge discount on medical supplies including drugs, even scheduled drugs (this was in the 80's) for the home and the office and not only office furniture but really nice furniture for your home, at a huge discount.

Why is it the people who make the most money get the best discounts? Why not the nurses or the lab techs or the orderlies etc?