Rising Health Care Cost

[djw26]

Hey, I'm happy to respond to this one. I'm actually a nursing student who works full time for a Health Insurance company. So, I think I might have a unique perspective.

I believe that everyone deserves to receive quality health care. But I also believe everyone should have food and shelter, but I don't believe it's anybody elses responsibility to provide that for me. ( although very nice & ethical to donate ). Also, countries that have decided to provide health care to all citizens lack in technological advances... Not something I'm interested in for me & my family...

Health insurance costs continue to rise as do the cost of providing health care treatments. The insurance industry's answer has been HMO's. HMO's have a lot of "rules" but I do believe that it is still quality care. HMO's limit a person's ability to abuse the health care system. Insurance companies have to make money too, and you'd probably be surprised if you knew how many medical insurance companies have gone bankrupt or have stopped selling medical insurance because they are losing insane amounts of money by not pricing the insurance premiums high enough.

I would expect that Government programs like Medicaid and Medicare will also begin to follow the HMO model. I worked in a University Hospital for many years, and I saw a lot of "health care" and medicaid abuse. For example, medicaid patients using the ER as their Primary Care Physician. However, I do believe that part of this problem is not educating the patient properly. Some people need a little extra educating when they do come in for care....

[fab4fan]

Every time a pt like that comes into the ED, I give him/her a sheet with a list of all the family docs, their addresses, phone numbers.

And they still come to the ED. Why? Because they get seen right away, and often go home with the meds they need. Why wait 2 days for an appt when you can be seen right away and get your Rx's too?

It's frustrating, but EMTALA makes it impossible for us to turn anyone away, even if they are there for something incredibly stupid.