Honestly -

[kyburg]

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The shortcomings in outpatient treatment that were exposed at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington exist throughout the military health-care system, Representative John Tierney said today during a hearing at the center.

Shame on me for quoting Bloomberg. But honestly.

What was your first clue?

What makes you think care under the VA system - which is a 'benefit', not insurance and they'll be very quick to tell you that at the door - would be much better than the care anyone gets walking into a facility today?

You've been the ER lately - within two years or less. Everyone does - tell me.

How long did you have to wait? Six hours? Longer?

Left AMA before you got care? Sure you did. You probably went home, treated it yourself and scheduled an office visit. You could. Faster.

Get hit with a huge bill, even if you did get seen? Sure you did. Particularly if you did not have insurance, and were you referred out perhaps at the same time to the county facility? Oh, and if you think the VA is short on funds and staff, you ought to try the tax-paid-for facilities that are there to act as the safety net.

We're back to the days before hospitals were considered the place one went by choice to get well.

MRSA? Ever heard of it? No? Go google it. Scared now? Entirely facility born, bred and maintained.

Talk about your elephant in the living room.

Hey. Remember all those wonderful trauma centers? Know where your nearest one is? Or if you even HAVE one? (You in Florida? No. You don't have one. Anywhere. Disney World and everything, and not ONE trauma center in the whole state.)

You get hit on the I15 on the California side of the border between Nevada and California, on your way to Las Vegas. You'll be airlifted to Loma Linda...that's just South and East of San Bernardino.

Hope the helicopter don't crash. Of course, that's after a unit finds you, which could be up to two hours.

Pro-life, my butt.

You know, I think all of this brougha is very nice, but you know something? This isn't symptomatic of the military insofar as our whole healthcare system has been underfunded to the point of failure for decades.

I doubt Walter Reed has to meet JCAHO requirements, being a military facility - that whole 'benefit' thing again, they don't bill Medicare.

This isn't even as easy as taking candy from babies. You're sick and disabled? You're invisible. Oh, until someone makes a news story over it - everyone clucks a bit, people get fired and maybe...maybe someone gets their wrists slapped.

When...WHEN...are we going to ever ACKNOWLEDGE THIS IS A PROBLEM? Change? Oh, that's what you need for the soda machine downstairs.

rrrrr.

Comments

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

You also paid for the tech who checked you in, the housekeeping staff who cleaned the room, the linens on the beds, all the disposable stuff used in your care, the property taxes on the facility, the utilities...all the techs who took samples, the lab who processed them...oh, don't forget the nurses....

It adds up quick.

Oh, and add in the bankruptcy loans the facility has outstanding, and all the patients with underpaying policies that the hospital has to hire collection agencies (and give them a piece of the money they recover) to get the balances from - sense a pattern?

[turandot.livejournal.com]

It adds up quick.

*nods*

I'd like to add that they really try put the screw to you if you have no choice but to undergo hospitalization for surgery. My dad's been through it, I've been through it, and both times there was an exorbitantly ridiculous charge on the final bill.

I had surgery first, where nearly $3,000 out of a $9,000 bill for when I was in the hospital overnight after a surgery: it was basically two administrations of a painkiller by a nurse. I had to laugh maddeningly at that one. I was uninsured at the time, and unemployed, but hell if the hospital did not refuse to discount a single dime on the bill using the argument that since I had been living with my boyfriend for 4 months, I was technically his common law wife*, so he could shoulder my medical expenses.

My parents on the other hand had Humana coverage, and their PPO pretty much argued them tooth and nail over all the charges, also notifying my parents not to pay a dime until the hospital sent a revised bill (because partial payment would equal acceptance). They got the bill reduced by half.

At that point I realized that in my case the hospital knew that not having health insurance meant I essentially had no one on my side who could argue that they were making me pay for my own procedure, and then some. Welcome to fully privatized health systems!


*Found out since that under the laws of most states, including Texas, common law marriage designation requires that a couple has to have lived together, i.e., shared assets, for six months or more. So that was a filthy lie right there (and no, the knowledge that the person on the other end of the phone was under pressure to collect as much as she could from her accounts does not make me any less bitter).