PA. Senate approves Constitutional Amendment to Prevent People from Having to Buy Health Insurance

[JPZenger]

http://www.pasenategop.com/news/2012/0312/scarnati-032812.htm

The Republican controlled PA. Senate voted today to approve a proposed amendment to the State Constitution. It would try to prevent any requirement that people buy health insurance. Instead, our Republican Senators believe that people should be able to freeload on the system and have their health care costs picked up by people who do have insurance.

Personal responsibility anyone?

(Of course, the Obamacare plan would subsidize health insurance costs so that everyone could afford to buy it. However, the insurance industry objects to removing "prexisiting condition" requirements unless everyone has to have health insurance. That was a very Republican idea in the 1990s.)

[PA Democrat]

1. Even if you have insurance, the closest emergency room may be closed

or so overcrowded that you may not have the best outcome if you need emergency care.

U.S. cities have lost almost 30 percent of their hospital emergency rooms in the past 20 years, while patient visits to ERs jumped by more than 35 percent, new research shows.

And the closures disproportionately affect "safety net" emergency rooms, meaning those serving patients who are poor, publicly insured or uninsured -- people without access to traditional avenues of health care, according to a study in the May 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The implications include longer waits at remaining ERs, including those in higher-income communities, overcrowding and reduced access to medical care, experts said.

"If people don't have an ER in their community, it's not that their emergency room just disappears. They go to another ER, which could be another community and that increases crowding, and there's good literature to show that crowding does affect patient outcomes," explained study author Dr. Renee Y. Hsia, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/insurance/articles/2011/05/17/almost-30-of-urban-ers-closed-during-past-two-decades-study

[JPZenger]

2. Yes, an incredible number of hospitals have closed

Throughout Pa. and other states, an incredible number of hospitals have closed in recent years. Most were in low-income or rural areas - where there are the lowest percentages of persons with private insurance. Meanwhile, several new for-profit hospitals and large surgery centers have been built in rich suburban areas.

The number of for-profit hospitals have also greatly increased in PA. in recent years - for example, most of the hospitals in the Scranton area are now for-profit, as well as the hospitals in Carlisle and Easton. Many of the Phila. hospitals are for-profits. They have little interest in caring for people without insurance, except to get them out the emergency room door with as little expense as possible.

We ask too much of our hospitals in low income and rural areas when we expect them to provide tens in millions in uncompensated care.