X-Message-Number: 27029
References: <>
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: the plight of the poor
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:28:44 +0200

On 12 Sep 2005, at 15:57, Charles Platt wrote:


>> Since forty million American are deprived of regular medical care due
>> to having no health insurance, this argument doesn't have much chance
>> of going anywhere.
>>
>>
>
> Thanks for this reminder, David Stodolsky, but it omits to
> mention that any publicly funded hospital is compelled to
> receive and treat any indigent person who shows up at its
> emergency room, free of charge; and many such people thus use
> emergency rooms as if they are doctor's offices.
>

I'd like to know how many poor women show up at the emergency room  
for a regular pap test. Somehow I doubt they get the service that  
insured women get at their doctor's office. Once cancer has spread  
through their reproductive system, they can probably can get some  
sort of care. This assumes, of course, they even have the money to  
get to the emergency room of a publicly-funded hospital.

For some contact with reality, as opposed to legislative idealism:

http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/02/12/reviews/481.php


> In between the emergency department and the medical wards, terms  
> like  gomer  (get out of my emergency room) started to surface, and  
> I was drawn back to the book again.
>


Might also be worth checking Democracy Now! of Monday: A New Orleans  
resident explains that after no help for over a  week, the community  
organized its own health clinic with volunteers from all over the  
USA. He also mentions that a dead body has been laying on the street  
there for a couple of weeks, with no removal date in sight, even  
though requests to the authorities have been made daily.




> I speak from
> experience.  Indeed, having sampled emergency rooms in the
> USA and in Great Britain, I can assure you that the free
> service I received in the USA (back in the days when I had a
> very low income) was far superior to that which I received in
> Great Britain.
>

Once again we see demonstrated that anecdotal evidence is useless as  
data. A comparison of medical care between Canada, where there is a  
universal system, and US shows that the US system is twice as  
expensive and people live three years less. The UK system was pretty  
much like the one in Canada.

I also remember seeing a documentary that compared emergency room  
treatment for a minor injury, I think it was a sprained ankle, in the  
US, Canada, and Cuba. Cuba came in first and the US last.




> It is grossly misleading to characterize the US system as
> locking out poor people. In Arizona I lived for four years in
> an area where virtually no one had health insurance, yet my
> neighbors received excellent care when they needed it.

It would be cost effective, if adequate care was available to all.  
Maybe it would finally stop the spread of multi-drug resistant  
gonnorhea on the East Coast of the US. Genomic studies have shown  
that the same strain has been circulating in that population for so  
long that it is resistant to just about every drug available. This  
inadequate treatment is leading to a health emergency for the whole  
society. On a global scale, we see the same effect with the AIDS  
pandemic.



> Of
> course it was at the expense of other, paying patients, whose
> fees were much higher as a result, but since this amounts to
> a form of involuntary income redistribution, perhaps you
> would think this is a fine idea.
>

People covered by health plans typically get much (sometime by a  
factor of ten) cheaper rates in hospitals than others. The hospitals  
typically must bid low to get contracts from insurance companies and  
HMOs, so they compensate by raising the rates for others. Hospital's  
use collection agents that feel fine about taking away peoples' homes  
to get money. Does homelessness contribute to good health?

Anyone who has looked at recent income statistics knows that the US  
is going thru a period of massive income redistribution to the rich.


There is an old saying that there are none so blind as those who will  
not see. The most important factor contributing to preventable  
premature death is poverty. This is true in the US and worldwide. For  
someone who claims that they are interested in "saving lives," to not  
recognize this borders on fanaticism. We are now in the unfortunate  
situation of trying to explain that it is reasonable to spend as much  
on a single patient at CI as on saving the lives of a hundred  children:

http://rehydrate.org/ors/solution_for_survival.htm



Long ago, when I started Cryonics.Info, I had some correspondence  
with Charles Platt, until I told him the Site had just been started.  
After that, he couldn't be bothered to even answer my emails. The  
time has finally come to return the favor. The combination of  
irrelevancy, short sightedness, and mendacity makes his messages a  
waste of time to read. I will no longer respond to Charles Platt's  
messages, his email is now automatically redirected to my Trash folder.


dss



David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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