Welcome to sick season.
According to the CDC, New York City — along with New Jersey and at least 16 other states — is now experiencing “high” to “very high” levels of respiratory-illness activity as measured by the number of weekly visits to health-care providers and emergency rooms by people having symptoms of fever, cough, and sore throat.
The culprits are the usual suspects: this year’s strains of influenza, COVID, and RSV. And though flulike-illness levels have been above baseline nationally for several consecutive weeks, the CDC warns that we still haven’t hit the peak.
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As always, seniors remain the most at-risk demographic for severe outcomes from respiratory illnesses, which is why the low vaccination rates for that group remain troubling.
Beyond vaccination, for everyone, the best way to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses like the flu and RSV is regular handwashing; avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth; and staying home if you get sick. High-filtration face masks still work great, too, and not just for avoiding COVID.
Keep crowding those emergency rooms for non emergencies folks…that certainly help those in need and reduce wait times and healthcare workers workloads…
Antibiotics for everyone!
Where do you propose people who don’t have insurance go for non-emergency healthcare?
Is that a serious question? I sincerely hope that people don’t think that is a thing to do.
Going to the ER is always going to be more expensive than going to a regular doctor, with insurance or without.
An urgent care clinic or general medical center is where you’re supposed to go for non-emergency care. If you can’t afford the doctor bills at those, then the local county health department should offer medical services at reduced cost for low-income people.
Urgent care and medical centers require insurance.
ERs do not.
So, again, where do people without insurance go for non-emergency healthcare? What the county health department should do is irrelevant. There should be universal healthcare in this country. There isn’t that and health departments aren’t offering any medical services at reduced cost.
The only option uninsured people have in much of the U.S. is the ER.
There SHOULD be universal Healthcare, but there isn’t.
The answer is finding a private practice that will see you for cash, not theft, which is a crime.
You are not entitled to free healthcare.
yikes
Yikes what?
I am all for the US going single payer. We aren’t though.
So impoverished sick people who can’t afford to go to a private practice for cash should just die?
No, what isn’t getting through your thick skull?
You take on the medical debt. Like everyone else does.
And if you never pay it back… which poor people can’t afford to do… that’s not theft?
No.
Minimum/Good faith payments.
Carry the debt. Like everyone else.
Don’t be a criminal.
What is so hard to understand about this?
You cant afford a car. Do you go and steal a Lexus? No, you get a used PT Cruiser and you make the payments. Capitalism isn’t that hard to understand, if you live in America, you need to understand it until we get some Socialism installed, which I am for, but breaking the existing system and fucking over the rest of us is not the way.
Taking on 300 dollars in debt for a trip to a private practice is FAR better than taking on 3000 dollars in debt by going to an ER. And just skipping out on the bill you run out isn’t an option. That is theft.
I’m a nurse in a hospital. We absolutely do NOT consider uninsured people seeking healthcare to be theft.
Would we prefer that people have Medicaid and seek primary care services elsewhere? Of course. So one of the things we do when people come in is get them signed up. Should that be our responsibility? Of course not. But here we are.
To be clear, I am saying providing a false name or intending to fully skip out on the bill is theft.
I am arguing with people here who say the ER is the ONLY place you can go if you don’t have insurance. That is a lie. There are tons of places you can go, the ER is NOT your only option if you don’t have insurance.
I am arguing with people here who say if your uninsured and go to the ER you should provide a false name or fully ignore the bill you run up. That is theft. You take on your debt, you make at least good faith payments, or you file for bankruptcy, just like the rest of us.
Theft is a crime.
You are admitting to being an entitled theif.
Um… a regular doctor?
Will still be cheaper than an ER…
Insurance doesnt give you access to the doctor. It reduces the cost for the going to the doctor…
Edit: ITT a bunch of uneducated and misinformed people argue with and downvote me for describing the current American Healthcare System because they dont like the current American Healthcare System, so they feel entitled to just go “nuh uh, I’m poor, the rules don’t apply to me. Imma just steal the most expensive healthcare.”
I don’t know of many regular doctors who are willing to see people who are uninsured. Unlike hospitals, doctors expect to be paid back by everyone, even the poor.
Hospitals 100% expect to be paid too.
You can almost assuredly find a private practice doctor that will see you for a cash transaction, but you do need to pay for Healthcare services in America.
You shouldn’t put the lives of people experiencing true emergencies at risk because you want to commit a crime and dine and dash on an emergency doctor so he can look at your sniffles.
Medical debt is dischargeable by bankruptcy, but you can only get 1 of those every 8 years.
Can’t visit a regular doctor if you don’t have one already, and you won’t without insurance because they won’t be taking patients that don’t have insurance.
You can try those quick care places, but they tend to either require insurance or charge an arm and a leg just to be seen. They also tend to have limited hours.
The emergency room must see you for free at the point of service and will bill you later. That works for those that can’t afford to pay up front for care or have trouble being seen during work hours.
Your first paragraph is patently false.
The rest is “I’m a criminal. Let me steal medical services.”
You know where it is impossible to “steal medical services”? Any first world country with a single payer system.
Pretty shitty to blame people who cannot afford medical care because of our terrible system.
But you know where the people in this thread suggesting that poor people MUST abuse Emergency Rooms to steam medicine and services? America.
I agree, its a broken system. It should be universal single payer. It’s not though.
Medical debt sucks. You know what sucks more? Exhausted overworked doctors and nurses constantly being stolen because some people fancy themselves above the system.
Why are prices so out of control? Why does one trip to the hospital, with insurance or not, bankrupt someone? Because shit sucking leeches are perpetuating this complete lie that the only way to find medical care if you are poor is to rip off an Emergency Room.