Re: How many jobs depend on the Detroit Three?

You are wrong! When one chooses a healthcare provider, the things that are covered are listed by the provider. If the plan one choose, denies a coverage listed , one has recourse.

Pot, meet kettle. Try running a spell-check, or grammar check, Mike...Unless you did get to grade "seventy", which bassed on your post's, is possible.

BULLSHIT. They will treat you for ANYTHING in the ER. Maybe you should actually go and see, not just pulling it out of your ass. I am an EMT and work with a fire department and an ambulance. The ER will take ANYTHING. They do sometimes prioritize based on actual injury, but on a slow day anything goes.

Talk to any ambulance or care provider and they will tell you some of the crap they see. How about this one, person slips and falls. Has some swelling on the arm and localized pain. Straight to the ER.

12 year old kid with a SLIGHT fever, Straight to the ER. 52 year old kidney patient needs dialysis but couldn't get to the doctors. Into the ER with them. Been out drinking and have a sour stomach, head to the ER. and here's one that happens a LOT. Patient has a Dr. appointment but no car or bus. Call the ambulance and get taken to the ER, Then they walk in and say "Oh I feel much better now, Goodbye" Then they walk around the side of the building to their Doctors.

The ER will take

It might be that way, but it shouldnt be that way. Many hospitals are privately owned and live or die by the viability of their income.

Yep that old reality of existence versus the dreams of the idealist.

Kind of like the only folks on welfare should be those who actually need it, not just anyone who applies and cries.

ANY hospital that accepts any federal or state funding has to treat whoever comes in. Talk to the administrators some time and see how much money they have to write off the books as unpaid bills yearly. One of our local hospitals averages $5,000.00 a month in unpaid bills that they cannot collect, so they just write it off the books as charitable care.

Read some of the medical journals and you will also discover that there are a LOT of doctors leaving the field of medicine because of the current laws and insurance costs.

My personal physician told me that years ago when I first started using his services, he was against universal health care. Now, he says that he and many other doctors would be glad to see it come. They get a lot of insurance cases where the company wont pay. It is driving them broke.

No they will not. Only for emergencies. They will not do things like dialysis (until your condition turns into an emergency).

No ER is going to provide non-emergency services.

Sure, after the condition has worsened into an emergency.

The only legal obligation:

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 requires that all patients presenting to an emergency facility, regardless of ability to pay, need to be screened for an emergency condition. If an emergency condition is found, the patient must be treated and stabilized before being transferred to another facility. 42 U.S. Code =A7 1395dd.

My one son-in-law, an eminent cardiologist practicing in Wisconsin, closed his practice at age fifty and started teaching when malpractice insurance for a carpologist when up to $163,000 annually

Sorry - but it's SOP in the community I live in. It's routine for doctors to have you go to the emergency room for treatment of routine kinds of stuff. I don't know how it came to be that way, but it's true.

It is true that cashiers are not taught how to make change anymore. The correct way is to count up from the total price to the amount tendered. The cashier should count the change to themselves first, then to the customer. When the transaction is treated as a math problem, mistakes are made.

Steve R.

Happens all the time. I see it daily.

NOPE. Non-Emergency care happens all the time.

Some states have maintained that any time a patient is able to schedule an appointment ? as opposed to showing up at an emergency room ? the condition would not be considered an emergency. Others, including New York, have defined an emergency as any condition that could become an emergency or lead to death without treatment.

And the term "Emergency Condition" has been defined in New York (and many other states as well) as ANY condition that could become an emergency or lead to death without treatment.

"There are clearly situations that we consider emergencies where we need to give people chemotherapy,? Richard F. Daines, the New York State health commissioner, said in an interview late yesterday. ?To say they don?t qualify is self-defeating in that those situations will eventually become emergencies.?

From

Medical Emergency Care For life threatening medical crisis: The hospitals listed below have outstanding emergency treatment facilities (often referred to as "emergency rooms" for treatment of trauma, heart, stroke and other major medical crises. They are staffed with specialists in emergency medicine and have immediate access to the latest technology and operating rooms. For true medical emergencies, they communicate via radio with the transporting ambulance and literally meet you at the door.

Waiting and the principle of "triage": Emergency rooms are not the place to go for minor medical problems or non life-threatening medical conditions (colds, flu, sprains) which can be better treated in a doctor's office or ambulatory walk-in care center.

Otherwise, you are likely to wait for hours before speaking to a doctor because emergency rooms treat patients strictly on the triage principle of "medical urgency". The "admitting staff" quickly evaluates the seriousness of your medical problem. Life-threatening conditions and immediate medical crises (mother in labor, unconscious patient, serious bleed, heart attacks, etc. ) are given the highest priority, then patients in serious pain (e.g. broken bones), and last the patient who needs medicine for their cold.

Notice that last line.

The problem with EMTALA is that it does NOT define what an emergency condition is. It was originally written to prevent hospitals from refusing illegal immigrants and uninsured people treatment. The problem is that MANY of those same people have taken hospitals to court based on what THEY interpreted an "Emergency" to be. And they WON. Now many of the states have laws stating that ALL people who enter the ER be treated, regardless of the reason.

Part of the definitions of Article 30 of the Emergency Services Law in NY

1. "Emergency medical care" means the initial management, treatment, and transfer of suddenly ill or injured patients.
2. "Emergency patient" means any patient making an unscheduled visit to a hospital emergency facility for emergency medical care.

Being in this field I KNOW the laws and what happens if we break them in NY. The federal Law is just that FEDERAL. The thing is that States can enact tougher laws if they wish as long as those laws don't violate the Federal one. NY has done that as have many other states.

Not surprising. The insurance costs and the costs of all the continuing education is a HUGE dollar amount.

You are correct, but the fact remains that most cashiers can't do simple counting in their heads. But it is still a math problem. . .

SC Tom

That is certainly high for a guy that sorts apples and bananas.

Definition of Carpologist Car`pol´o`gist n. 1. One who describes fruits; one versed in carpology.

I never heard of private insurers, but cant say that they dont exist in Texas.

When I was running my own company about 10-15 years ago, I had to pay $800+ per month for my wife, son, and myself.

No matter how well we followed the rules they established, they always found a "catch 22" and would not pay.

Changed to another insurer.. Same thing.

For that amount of money, I and my employees could have set up an unofficial pool and paid all our own bills. ALL of them.

Under Norwegian national health, there were no claims to file at all. You just went to a doctor, paid your "egen andel", or surcharge, and that was the end of it. Surcharge was waived for those in economic low levels.

I much prefer the Norwegian system. There ARE private doctors there if you dont like the triage system of the national health system. They are, I suppose, subsidized too and neither health care nor prescriptions are overly expensive.

The gotcha on that is that all it takes is a couple of people in your pool to get cancer and run up well into 6 figures in bills each to bankrupt your self-funded kitty.

The same effect happens if you work for a small company with a 3rd party carrier and a handful of covered employees or family members come down with something catastrophic - the insurance company then looks at your company as an isolated high risk group and the rates for just your company go thru the roof.

My philosophy with warranties and insurance in general is to self insure whenever possible except for things that could wipe you out financially. I used to think about shopping for a catastrophic health insurance plan to replace what I get thru work, but the irony is that employer provided insurance anymore has become just that, except they don't call it that.

Norway has its own problems. I've seen figures of what it costs in taxes and fees to buy a car in Norway. There ain't no free lunch.

Cars are expensive due to the tax system, no doubt. But almost everybody owns one. Wages are much higher than here.

For the foreigner coming into Norway, it looks hopeless. But in a small system (large country, small population, and great wealth) of this type, things seem to work well despite themselves.

We have been paying $6-8 per gallon for gasoline for a long time.. About

10% less for diesel.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to amass wealth there. But wealth is not really needed. Everything is taken care of including retirement. Goes very counter to the American way of life...but, it works and works well.

When I first got there, I paid 92% in income tax. Later it dropped to 52%. And that paid for my social health, retirement, governmental expenses, etc, and I had money left over. If you look at US income tax, starting with about 28%, and add about

15% for social security, plus healthcare, etc.. it is surprisingly near the American model.

And the advantages under Scandinavian socialism is that we have little crime, essentially no homeless, very low unemployment, high levels of education, and little cultural difficulties.

Not for most Americans, but it worked well for me, and I would have never repatriated had it not been for the problems my wife had here with her aging parents.

I'm sure it was a typo, but still funny.

Actually, I did it on purpose. You're the only one that caught it, or at least commented on it ;)