Here is a basic question I do not know the answer to about Obamacare.
Everyone in the US, including the homeless and illegal aliens gets all the healthcare they need right now. In fact, in San Diego the homeless with chronic alcohol, drug and diabetes account for 17% of all ambulance and paramedic charges although they represent only a fraction of 1% of the population.
“Frequent emergency service users represent eight-hundredths of a percent of San Diego’s population, but they account for more than 17% of paramedic and ambulance calls in the city.”
“According to the city medical director’s office, 1,136 frequent emergency service users in San Diego are on pace to use emergency medical services at least six times this year and generate more than $20 million in ambulance and paramedic charges.”
“Angelo Solis is a chronic alcoholic in his late 60s who was homeless for many years in Solano County, California. Solis frequently passed out drunk in public, and police brought him to the hospital emergency room. There, doctors often admitted him to treat his multiple chronic health problems and so he could detoxify safely….because he slept outside and couldn’t properly care for his diabetes or heart disease.
In three years, Solis racked up nearly $1 million in medical charges – paid for by taxpayers.” http://www.reportingonhealth.org/resources/lessons/million-dollar-homeless-patient.
In Reno, “Million Dollar Murray” was featured in New Yorker Magazine a few years ago, because he too ran up millions of dollars in homeless healthcare, and those people exist in every community.
So, if the “Frequent User” (Also called “Frequent Fliers” by medical professionals) indigent can get health care, other than giving them “cards” that make them feel better (as if they care), and the government(s) still picks up the bill through a subsidized card, exactly why are we messing with a working system? (Other than building a lot of huge government bureaucracies?)
If a homeless Frequent User gets a Bronze Card with a $5,000 deductible, is he/she going to pay the deductible? Will the government send newly minted IRS Agents to collect?
They say that Illegal Aliens will not get Obamacare, but that doesn’t mean they cannot STILL go to the same Emergency Rooms they use today and get the same follow-on care.
The Fresno Bee reported the case of one Marco Antonio Fuentes, who ran up a million dollar medical bill in a local hospital with 12 surgeries in a single year! O.K. under Obamaccae he will not get a card, but he will still get the required surgeries.
http://www.calhospital.org/daily-news/daily-news-55
I’ll admit to being thoroughly confused. Other than giving an insurance card to every person without one, what have we accomplished? No more Doctors, no more hospitals, not one new scanner, or one new Nurse….
Just run the printing presses and print the damn cards by the millions for free distribution to the millions without cards, but do not make an additional gazillion rules and regulations.
Rube Goldberg would smile at this contraption. It’s like building a block-long machine to open a bottle of beer — it may or may not work, but to what end?
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