Oct 15 2012
No Pain, No Gain
With no where to go and no option available, millions of people without insurance are forced to go to the emergency room to receive every day healthcare. This troubling idea is explored in the documentary The Waiting Room, which is just a look into one day in an emergency room in California. I’ve always known that people seek out the emergency room since a hospital isn’t allowed to deny admission to anyone on any grounds. The various cases, from a man with a bullet moving in his body, to a guy just going for a refill on diabetes medication, all had the same thing in common, none of these patients had insurance to pay for a regular doctor. They would still have to pay for the hospital’s services, but at least they got the care they needed. This is by no means a solution to a growing problem. People all across America are unemployed and have no access to health insurance and are forced to go to the emergency room when they can endure no more. In some cases these people wait for hours on end till they receive care since the hospital has to choose on basis of severity. Sometimes, no matter how severe the case, a patient can’t be seen by a doctor because all available beds are being used. There seems to be no right answer to this puzzling problem in America. In all other first world nations, universal healthcare is a given because the public is willing to give up more in terms of taxes, but that simply isn’t an option here in the good ol’ US of A. Obamacare, while a good idea, doesn’t seem to have the solution necessary to help the ailing healthcare system. Universal healthcare has to be just that, universal, on all levels. Americans need to take more responsibility in order to help themselves and society itself.
Credit: http://conservatard.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/emergency-room.jpg
I agree with what you are saying about universal health care in the United States. I don’t see it working here. Even if we were to give up a little more as you said, how do we transition a capitalistic industry into a government service? The sad thing is that public emergency rooms like this one exist across the country and it looks like it will remain this way for a long time.