White House says diabetics don’t deserve health insurance

[theeedude]

Who needs death panels to deny coverage when we can cut out the middle-man. They'll just make it so people can't get insurance in the first place. Think of all the money the government will save not having to employ people in their death panels.

They will just put millions of sick people into death pools, and then pretend that $8B over 5 years in a country of 300M, or basically $5/year/person is going to take care of them. Yes they really think that you are this stupid to fall for that fig leaf.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Hold on tight to that fig leaf, you'll need it to wipe your ass with.

 

[Vic]

Who needs death panels to deny coverage when we can cut out the middle-man. They'll just make it so people can't get insurance in the first place. Think of all the money the government will save not having to employ people in their death panels.

The larger problem IMO is that lack of insurance does not mean lack of care. Health providers cannot deny care solely due an inability to pay. But for most people, having insurance is how they can afford to pay for their care. The AHCA is just setting up the health care industry for a financial crisis IMO. People who can't or won't buy insurance will still get care as needed, but in many if not most cases, they won't be able to pay for the care they get.

 

[Brainonska511]

The larger problem IMO is that lack of insurance does not mean lack of care. Health providers cannot deny care solely due an inability to pay. But for most people, having insurance is how they can afford to pay for their care. The AHCA is just setting up the health care industry for a financial crisis IMO. People who can't or won't buy insurance will still get care as needed, but in many if not most cases, they won't be able to pay for the care they get.

People won't get the care they need since HCPs aren't required to provide treatment for everything regardless of the ability to pay. They only have to provide treatment for immediately life-threatening conditions. People will die as a result of lack-of-care and the health care industry will also suffer thanks to the removal of Medicaid payments and a failure of the government to re-institute the uninsured reimbursement pool that existed prior to the ACA.

 

[TheVrolok]

Health providers cannot deny care solely due an inability to pay.

Of course they can, and they do it all the time. Facilities bound by EMTALA must provide emergency care/stabilization, but are not required to care beyond that. Ambulatory providers of any kind can say "no" due to inability to pay with ease.

 

[Meghan54]

The larger problem IMO is that lack of insurance does not mean lack of care. Health providers cannot deny care solely due an inability to pay. But for most people, having insurance is how they can afford to pay for their care. The AHCA is just setting up the health care industry for a financial crisis IMO. People who can't or won't buy insurance will still get care as needed, but in many if not most cases, they won't be able to pay for the care they get.

This is one of the major misconceptions people seem to have. That people can get health care in any ER and not be turned away....and assume it's health care as comprehensive and has as much continuity as an MD's office visit. ER visits are none of those.

As everyone else is mentioning, it happens every day. Sure, you may not get turfed out of an ER for showing up with something chronic that's not emergent, but you may end up staying untold amounts of time before you're seen as true "emergencies" jump ahead of you. And being seen doesn't equate to "health care"...you won't get renewals of any prescriptions for chronic conditions....you won't get chemo....you won't get a routine PT/PTT (bleeding time tests) to check on how effective/appropriate your current dosage of coumadin is...you won't get adjustments made to your insulin injections....and on and on. ER's do not provide health care.

And as others have said, only in ER's can one be seen without the ability to pay, but this doesn't mean an ER has to see one for a non-emergent problem. Show up at a private hospital with a complaint of something like high BP or the like and you'll get triaged to ensure you're not in a life threatening situation, then get turfed to the nearest public hospital.

 

[crashtech]

I wish we'd just stop calling it insurance. Insurance is something few hope to use. What we have now are health care plans, they get used by a majority of those who have them. But the fight to get people to understand that everyone can't get more out than they pay in is long lost, so it just needs to be another entitlement now, Medicare writ large ought to do it. I wonder what the tax will need to be? 6.2% or so with employer matching?

 

[Vic]

I did not mean to imply that the care would be comparable with what an insured person would receive. Because IMO that makes the problem that I was describing that much worse. Less preventative care necessarily leads to more emergency care.