> Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference.
No, and you don't want an emergency room treating you, because emergency physicians aren't trained to provide anything other than acute care.
That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist.
Afterwards, they'll receive a bill for a rather large amount, which the hospital doesn't expect them to actually pay (but for legal reasons is required to present them with). If they know about this, the uninsured patient can almost always get away with paying less than 5-10% of the total (initial) bill, and the hospital writes off the remainder so the bill is paid in full (ie, it does not get sent to collections). Of course, most patients don't know any of that.
The billing situation is 100% fucked, and the reasons for that are way too long to explain here, but it's not true to say that an unemployed person without insurance can't receive anything but acute care from a hospital, or that they would necessarily have to end up in debt for doing so.
> That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist.
No, they often won't, because while ER stabilization without regard to ability to pay is mandatory, subsequent admission and treatment is not.
If the condition is not stabilized in the ER, they may be admitted for stabilization to fulfill the mandate, but there is no mandate for admission for treatment after stabilization.
> No, they often won't, because while ER stabilization without regard to ability to pay is mandatory, subsequent admission and treatment is not. If the condition is not stabilized in the ER, they may be admitted for stabilization to fulfill the mandate, but there is no mandate for admission for treatment after stabilization.
That's not really true, and it's a common misconception that arises due to the way the ER mandate is specified in law (explicitly, and via a single bill), as opposed to the confluence of a few different regulations.
In short, because of the intersection of ways in which hospitals are and are not allowed to discriminate against patients by insurance status, what ends up happening in practice is that the decision to admit a patient is rarely made with the patient's insurance status as a determining factor.
That's especially true for public hospitals, but it's true of many private hospital situations as well. (Note that this doesn't apply to the decision of which hospital to admit a patient to - a single ER which has more than one associated hospital may decide to admit a patient to the public hospital instead of the private one based on their insurance status).
My mama taught me to not talk about things I don't know anything about. I wish more people listened to their mamas.
To the curious Europeans out there, if you lose your job you can stay on your job's health plan for 18 months while you look for new work. If you're unemployed that long then you'd qualify for Medicaid after that, the government insurance program for the poor. If for whatever reason you really didn't have insurance you will nevertheless never be turned away from any hospital emergency room. This "die in he street because you have no insurance" is a myth and total hogwash.
> Put another way: today you can still get the same type and quality of care that was available in the 1960s,
If you can pay the full premiums, including the part your employer paid while you were employed.
> If unemployed that long then you'd qualify for Medicaid after that, the government insurance program for the poor.
You don't qualify for Medicaid based on duration of unemployment; whether, and in what form, you would qualify for Medicaid depends on income, assets, and state you live in (Medicaid is a state-run program with some federal standards, though even the most basic broad-strokes qualifications differ between states, especially between those participating in the expansion under the ACA and those not.)
> If for whatever reason you really didn't have insurance you will nevertheless never be turned away from any hospital emergency room.
But will be booted into the street from the ER after stabilization without treatment of the underlying condition.
> This "die in he street because you have no insurance" is a myth and total hogwash.
Except that people do, in fact, die because of lack of health insurance in the US.
Make sure mama also told you these two things... Cobra insurance after losing your job requires you to pay the full premium which can be upwards of 10k per year. Also Medicaid has a very low asset threshold that you can still qualify unless you are pregnant, have young kids, disabled or elderly. ACA subsidy is the best shot for most in this situation but who knows how long till it is dismantled.
It's not hogwash when actual, documented cases exist of people not going to the emergency room for fear of being crushed to death by the debt from an ER visit. And COBRA doesn't just give you free insurance for 18 months, you have to pay the full premium for it. If you're unemployed, how in the hell do you expect to pay the full premium as opposed to the premium that you were paying before that was subsidized by your employer?
You've clearly never, ever been in a position where money was an issue for you. Especially not to the point where you felt your life was in danger because of it.
If you had been, you wouldn't be handwaving away legitimate concerns over the system of healthcare. Considering you didn't even address any of the points I mentioned, I have a feeling you have no response.
