I’ll see your “6 months for a heart monitor” and raise you a girl who tripped in a bar, her glass broke, slitting her throat and a major artery. The girl was gotten to the hospital in LESS THAN 20 MINUTES. She didn’t sit in triage or a waiting room, she was rushed immediately to surgery. She is alive today. Her cost? Nothing.

Or perhaps the man who had a heart attack in a department store, and had a crew on scene in less than 8 minutes, living to tell the story, and not losing his life savings to hospital and emergency care bills. His cost? Nothing.

These are all 2nd hand reports as well – I’ve spoken directly with the paramedics who handled the cases. All from England and Scotland -the UK.

Or maybe I should instead tell you about my mother – made to sit in a wheelchair for over 13 hours in a waiting room at the hospital because nobody could be bothered to even TRIAGE her – because she was an elderly woman with dementia. She came home without even seeing a doctor – and was billed several thousand dollars for the privilege of sitting surrounded by strangers in a waiting room. In Florida.

[mod note: Last sentence deleted by moderator because personal insults and personal attacks are strictly and explicitly forbidden on this website.]

While many of us do that on our own (I have), there is so much wrong with putting a document like that in the hands of bureaucrats, in most cases many years before the person reaches an end-of-life situation when circumstances are very likely to have changed & a long-forgotten or estranged(or dead!) proxy may be given life-&-death power. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

These anecdotes show up everywhere in every healthcare system…if you want to see and hear stories about suffering and death due to lack of money to access healthcare, I could tell you stories but you shoul;d talk to my daughter who has spent the last 2 years teachin in an inner-city highschool right here in the heartland of democracy and the anus of progress. If you live in Arizona, you don’t hafta walk very far to find a neighborhood where literally hundreds are on the brink because of inadequate or non-existant healthcare. Don’t give me any horror stories from one of the poorest countries in the “civilized” world (Ireland)…we’re talkin about doin away with unnecessary suffering and death in the richest country in the fuckin world!