« Kathleen Sebelius: Yet Another Tax Cheat Nominee | Main | In Iowa, 500 Villagers Thrown Out of the Castle »
April 1, 2009
Nine Deadbeats Run up $3 Million in Emergency Room Bills
The size of ambulance-chaser John Edwards's mansion is one clue as to why healthcare is so expensive. Here's another clue:
In the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million, according to a report from a nonprofit made up of hospitals and other providers that care for the uninsured and low-income Central Texans. …
The report that mentioned the nine high-frequency patients didn't include reasons for all of those ER visits and didn't identify the patients because of privacy laws. But [Ann] Kitchen, a former state legislator from Austin, gave a sketch: All nine speak English; three are homeless… Seven have a mental health diagnosis and eight have a drug abuse diagnosis. Kitchen said she did not know their citizenship status.
If they are American citizens, that would make them exceptions to the rule. Illegal aliens are infamous for using emergency rooms as free clinics, providing the rest of us with long waits for real emergencies and driving whole hospitals out of business.
Not to worry: socialized Obamacare will cure the problem of people exploiting free (to deadbeats) medical care by making sure there is no medical care available for anyone before spending months on a waiting list.
Soon we'll apply the same principles to supermarkets that we do to hospitals. First, food will be free for anyone who shows up and claims to be hungry. When the stores start to go under, the State will nationalize the grocery business, and we can spend our days standing in line for black potatoes, as in the Soviet Union, which America is following into failed state status under the socialist regime of Hope and Change.
On a tip from nancz.
Posted by Van Helsing at April 1, 2009 8:35 AM
Comments
God help us all. These Libs are going destroy one of the best health care systems in the name of fairness. LIFE IS NOT FAIR! Get over it.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Franklin's Locke at April 1, 2009 9:04 AM
Put em to work and public service and make them pay their hospital bills
Posted by: SPURWING PLOVER at April 1, 2009 11:30 AM
Spurwing, I'm fairly sure (through my extensive observations of employees of the DOT, DMV, city clerk's office, etc.) that the terms "work" and "public service" are mutually exclusive.
Posted by: hiram at April 1, 2009 11:35 AM
Much as I'd like to complain about this, I know that most of these people are mentally ill. Unfortunately, Austin and Texas as a whole have a terrible record of taking care of these people who can't take care of themselves. If they're mentally ill citizens, they should be helped. They come to the emergency room because Austin has no facility to take care of the mentally ill.
If you're not a danger to yourself or others, you get tossed out of the state institution. Of course, some of these people can't even feed themselves. Austin coddles the illegals, but the mentally ill citizens are left to fend for themselves under bridges until they are a victim of crime or the weather or their disease.
Posted by: gordon at April 1, 2009 2:55 PM
"Seven have a mental health diagnosis and eight have a drug abuse diagnosis." - Dopers who prefer vicodin and other pharmaceuticals, as opposed to meth- and coke-heads, have mastered the art of faking painful symptoms to score legitimate prescriptions for their candy of choice. If you come in screaming about your pancreas, or your back, or something similar, and the staff knows you don't have the insurance to pay for a complete set of diagnostic tests, they'll often write out an Rx for 5 or 10 painkillers. Do this every day or two in a large state for a month, at different hospitals, and you've got quite a nice little score. Oh, and the hospital bills? Who pays those? Me and you.
Posted by: PabloD at April 1, 2009 6:45 PM
Make them work as orderlies in a big time surgery
Posted by: Flu-Bird at April 1, 2009 9:36 PM
I have had my fill of supporting the "Eating class". If they will not be productive citizens then round them up and make them productive, wheather they want to be or not. If they want to enjoy the gifts of our society then they should pay just like the rest of us. Put them in labour camps to work off their debt. If they absolutely refuse to comply then cut them loose, they can recieve nothing from any agency. If they lay starving on the sidewalk just kick then into the ditch and keep going.
Posted by: Bill S. at April 2, 2009 10:09 AM
