Patrick McSorley, a victim of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan who became
one of the most visible critics of clergy sexual abuse, was discovered
dead early yesterday in a North End apartment, his lawyer said yesterday.
A close friend said McSorley, 29, occasionally went to the apartment to
take drugs owing to a chronic substance-abuse problem that had plagued him for several years.
"To think he had come this far and just to have it end so abruptly -- it's
a tragic ending," said the friend, Alexa MacPherson, 29,... "I spent a lot of last summer and fall trying to help him get into a drug-rehabilitation program. He definitely was in need of some serious help," MacPherson said.
"There were days when we would spend 10, 12, 14 hours at . . . hospitals, trying to get him in. He wanted their help so badly, and we basically got turned away because he had no health insurance."
Comment: "... turned away because he had no health insurance."Patrick McSorley may or may not be one of the 18,000 young adults who will
die this year merely because of the lack of health insurance. It is quite
possible that his disease of chemical dependency may have been lethal even
if he were insured. But now we'll never know.
Some may want to blame the victim. Others may blame clergy abuse. The
issues are complex, as they are in every instance of preventable premature death. But we can very easily eliminate the factor of being insured and move on with efforts to correct the other individual and societal problems that
culminate in these tragedies. Just that first step alone would save 18,000
I believe that you need to be a little more understanding abot how the US medical system actually creates this supposed 'individual irresponsiblity' about buying insurance, or not. It is an irresponsible system itself that demands that coverage be provided only by hundreds of millions of individual acts of supposed 'responsibility' for everything.
Take for an instant, auto Liability Insurance for example (and this is actually part of the US payment system for delivery of medical care!). For years universal coverage for drivers liability has been opposed by insurance companies. A universal coverage system would make payment for liability contingent upon being licensed as a driver, and/or having one's car given registration tags and license plates. Instead of such a sane system like that, individuals are constantly forced into a monthly choice of whether to pay for basic liability with limited personal funds, or not to pay. And many will juggle their money the wrong way.
Add to that, the fact that we know that with buying medical coverage, patients will often then have their pocket book (insurance policy) treated then. Just as having no coverage can endanger one's health by not allowing excess to tx., having coverage can often endanger one's health because suppliers of 'care' will tend to overtreat! And some HMOs are just so gawd awful, that it might actually be better to have no coverage at all. Hardly incentive to rush out and make those payments for such poor quality of medical care.
Currently I face a situation as a nurse, where the travel agency I worked for had no coverage for me and my family even as I worked. And when a contract ended, an emergency occurred. For two doctors visits that had no real care delivered, I am faced with a bill of around $1500 to get my daughter looked at! That's insane! Do you think me irresponsible if I balk at paying for such bullshit? I guess I am part of that group of those irresponsible people that make you so angry, right? But what is so wrong about just having everybody covered automatically, and funding the damn thing? Why make it a constant individual juggling of funds choice? Because individuals, just as businesses do, will try to opt out of paying for meia coverage what they shouldn't have to be paying that way for in the first place.
Specializes in Gerontological Nursing, Acute Rehab.
I believe that you need to be a little more understanding abot how the US medical system actually creates this supposed 'individual irresponsiblity' about buying insurance, or not. It is an irresponsible system itself that demands that coverage be provided only by hundreds of millions of individual acts of supposed 'responsibility' for everything.
Take for an instant, auto liability insurance for example (and this is actually part of the US payment system for delivery of medical care!). For years universal coverage for drivers liability has been opposed by insurance companies. A universal coverage system would make payment for liability contingent upon being licensed as a driver, and/or having one's car given registration tags and license plates. Instead of such a sane system like that, individuals are constantly forced into a monthly choice of whether to pay for basic liability with limited personal funds, or not to pay. And many will juggle their money the wrong way.
Add to that, the fact that we know that with buying medical coverage, patients will often then have their pocket book (insurance policy) treated then. Just as having no coverage can endanger one's health by not allowing excess to tx., having coverage can often endanger one's health because suppliers of 'care' will tend to overtreat! And some HMOs are just so gawd awful, that it might actually be better to have no coverage at all. Hardly incentive to rush out and make those payments for such poor quality of medical care.
Currently I face a situation as a nurse, where the travel agency I worked for had no coverage for me and my family even as I worked. And when a contract ended, an emergency occurred. For two doctors visits that had no real care delivered, I am faced with a bill of around $1500 to get my daughter looked at! That's insane! Do you think me irresponsible if I balk at paying for such bullshit? I guess I am part of that group of those irresponsible people that make you so angry, right? But what is so wrong about just having everybody covered automatically, and funding the damn thing? Why make it a constant individual juggling of funds choice? Because individuals, just as businesses do, will try to opt out of paying for meia coverage what they shouldn't have to be paying that way for in the first place.
Nurse Hardee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still think you are missing the point. The point that I and I feel other posters were trying to make was that as long as medical insurance is a "necessity", then people need to make every effort to get some type of insurance. I AM NOT talking about people who TRULY can't afford it, and I realize that there are people that can't. I am talking about people who could afford some type of insurance but don't want to make sacrifices. Sure, there are a lot of jobs my husband would love to take, jobs that he may be happier in, but he doesn't because he has a wife and kids to support and insure. Whether thats right or wrong, it's the way it is.
Why don't you feel people should pay for medical services? Why should it be funded? The lists of "maybes" could go on forever....maybe if drs didn't have to pay outrageous premiums for liability insurance, then prices wouldn't be so high.....maybe if insurance companies would reimburse doctors and hospitals more, then they wouldn't charge as much......it can go on and on. I'm not all for insurance companies...they anger me too, especially HMO's (ok..this is hard to say, but I agree with you on that point). I've been stuck with ER bills that my HMO refused to pay because they felt it wasn't "medically necessary", but I don't think that's the point here. If you can afford insurance, then get it. It's irresponsible not to.
By the way, I've noticed in other posts you've made in reply to something I have written you constantly say "You're wrong" or "you need to be more of this or that." I don't NEED to be anything but myself, and I don't have to agree with you to be intitled to state my opinion. We can discuss our different points of view, but you need to stop telling everyone they're wrong, misguided or ignorant just because they don't agree with your point of view.
Well, jkaee, sorry if I have come off as always pedantically lecturing in my responses to your posts. But I think that you do quite the same with those you label as 'irresponsible'. And that is what galls me, too, so I can understand how I might be irritating you with my responses.
You see, I grew up with people that were always faulting the poor for deserving their poverty because they were 'irresponsible', unlike the people in our neighborhood, like the Cheney's down the street. Yeah, that's right, he has a house just some mile or two down the road from where I grew up! Just got sick of those attitudes....
Nurse Hardee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why don't you feel people should pay for medical services? Why should it be funded? The lists of "maybes" could go on forever....maybe if drs didn't have to pay outrageous premiums for Liability Insurance, then prices wouldn't be so high.....maybe if insurance companies would reimburse doctors and hospitals more, then they wouldn't charge as much......it can go on and on. I'm not all for insurance companies...they anger me too, especially HMO's (ok..this is hard to say, but I agree with you on that point). I've been stuck with ER bills that my HMO refused to pay because they felt it wasn't "medically necessary", but I don't think that's the point here. If you can afford insurance, then get it. It's irresponsible not to.
By the way, I've noticed in other posts you've made in reply to something I have written you constantly say "You're wrong" or "you need to be more of this or that." I don't NEED to be anything but myself, and I don't have to agree with you to be intitled to state my opinion. We can discuss our different points of view, but you need to stop telling everyone they're wrong, misguided or ignorant just because they don't agree with your point of view.>>
To those of you who think everyone should pay shame on you!!!!
You need to look at the whole picture, stop stereo typing, everyone has a story, and if you have no sympathy youv'e made a horrible career choice. It's not always irresposibility--that is the worst stereo type!!!
My mother has been turned away from the hospital in our area on multiple emergency occasions due to no insurance(because her husband,my dad was killed at work, he had insurance and she never had to work).
Last year for stroke symtoms(numbness in her arm and leg on her left side) and they sent her back home, telling her she needed a transfusion because her hemoglobin was low due to menopause. They told her to go to the University two hours away and they would do it. She had no way to get there. After numerous visits to the local ER and the stereo type Menopause, she gave up. She had no money to get to the University, and could not afford to miss anymore work(and yes she does work).
A year and a half later the numbness has never left. A few days ago she lost 85% of eyesight in right eye, went to ER, they said not their problem, and the sent her to a optomatrist, not a doctor!! He said he knew what was wrong, "You need to go see a neurologist!" Off we went to the university! Within minutes, they knew what what wrong, just from her history and present symptoms. They sent her for a MRI to verify, She has MS! The brain scan showed so much Damage in her central lobe, the doctors were shocked that the ER doctors ignored her. If they would have just listened to her in the ER they would have figured it out in a few minutes. Anyways, they put her on IV Pretnizone 1000mg (to take down the inflamation on her optic nerve) and arranged it with a doctor at the hospital in our town to administer the 2 remaining doses over the next two days. She went to the hospital in our town today for her second dose, they turned her away for no insurance again! All Hospitals recieve state funding and donations to help people in her condition. :angryfire
And If you have no insurance or you get the medical card doctors don't listen they stereo type. Your a female in your 40's, menopause! The elderly, just old age! I love this one 15-30, a drug addict!!!
I agree people who go to the ER for a common cold or flu should go to a free clinic or something. But a Neurological dehabiliting, quality of life robbing, desease that is a shame!!!!! The steroid that will reduce the swelling on her optic nerve and give her her sight back, its a 15 minute stick in the arm, No doctor needed!
In the code of ethics, and the patient rights,
A patient cannot be turned away in a medical emergency
A patient has the right to stabilizing treatment
A patient cannot be discriminated against, due to age, creed, color, or religion
I don't know what has happened to the compassion in people. Yes I do! THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR!!!
So, for those who were turned away from emergency care because of no insurance, were they going to a for profit hospital? I've heard of them turning people away because they have no, or less political/tax/funding connection. I work as an ICU RN in a not for profit hospital and we frequently care for uninsured customers. I still get payed, but our managers are always going to budget meetings where we are always getting deeper and deeper.
Patrick McSorley, a victim of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan who became
one of the most visible critics of clergy sexual abuse, was discovered
dead early yesterday in a North End apartment, his lawyer said yesterday.
A close friend said McSorley, 29, occasionally went to the apartment to
take drugs owing to a chronic substance-abuse problem that had plagued him for several years.
"To think he had come this far and just to have it end so abruptly -- it's
a tragic ending," said the friend, Alexa MacPherson, 29,... "I spent a lot of last summer and fall trying to help him get into a drug-rehabilitation program. He definitely was in need of some serious help," MacPherson said.
"There were days when we would spend 10, 12, 14 hours at . . . hospitals, trying to get him in. He wanted their help so badly, and we basically got turned away because he had no health insurance."
Comment: "... turned away because he had no health insurance."Patrick McSorley may or may not be one of the 18,000 young adults who will
die this year merely because of the lack of health insurance. It is quite
possible that his disease of chemical dependency may have been lethal even
if he were insured. But now we'll never know.
Some may want to blame the victim. Others may blame clergy abuse. The
issues are complex, as they are in every instance of preventable premature death. But we can very easily eliminate the factor of being insured and move on with efforts to correct the other individual and societal problems that
culminate in these tragedies. Just that first step alone would save 18,000
young adult lives.
From what you say he is dead because he is a drug addict, that is the cause of his death.
Drug addict or not, i'm hearing of a LOT more cases of people dying as a result of no insurance. We had a pt. about a year ago who died of a systemic infection. The infection started from an abccessed tooth. Guess why he never got the tooth taken care of? No money, couldn't afford dental insurance.
The reason i know that is because since then his family has raised awareness to this issue, constantly.
NurseHardee
71 Posts
I believe that you need to be a little more understanding abot how the US medical system actually creates this supposed 'individual irresponsiblity' about buying insurance, or not. It is an irresponsible system itself that demands that coverage be provided only by hundreds of millions of individual acts of supposed 'responsibility' for everything.
Take for an instant, auto Liability Insurance for example (and this is actually part of the US payment system for delivery of medical care!). For years universal coverage for drivers liability has been opposed by insurance companies. A universal coverage system would make payment for liability contingent upon being licensed as a driver, and/or having one's car given registration tags and license plates. Instead of such a sane system like that, individuals are constantly forced into a monthly choice of whether to pay for basic liability with limited personal funds, or not to pay. And many will juggle their money the wrong way.
Add to that, the fact that we know that with buying medical coverage, patients will often then have their pocket book (insurance policy) treated then. Just as having no coverage can endanger one's health by not allowing excess to tx., having coverage can often endanger one's health because suppliers of 'care' will tend to overtreat! And some HMOs are just so gawd awful, that it might actually be better to have no coverage at all. Hardly incentive to rush out and make those payments for such poor quality of medical care.
Currently I face a situation as a nurse, where the travel agency I worked for had no coverage for me and my family even as I worked. And when a contract ended, an emergency occurred. For two doctors visits that had no real care delivered, I am faced with a bill of around $1500 to get my daughter looked at! That's insane! Do you think me irresponsible if I balk at paying for such bullshit? I guess I am part of that group of those irresponsible people that make you so angry, right? But what is so wrong about just having everybody covered automatically, and funding the damn thing? Why make it a constant individual juggling of funds choice? Because individuals, just as businesses do, will try to opt out of paying for meia coverage what they shouldn't have to be paying that way for in the first place.
Nurse Hardee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
jkaee quote...
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