I had two patients on the inpatient service recently, both without insurance. One was admitted for 3 days because of nausea and dehydration from her outpatient chemotherapy. She couldn't afford the nausea medications. The second was a man with metastatic cancer who needed brief rehabilitation and physical therapy to enable him to go home. None of the rehabilitation facilities would take him without insurance so he had to stay 10 extra days in our acute care hospital at a cost of thousands per day to get 2-3 hours of rehab a day. It is an illusion that uninsured patients don't get health care. They just get care that is both inefficient and more costly.
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| 1. | January 12, 2010 4:09 PM Ellicott city, MD | thank you for your commentary dr. armstrong, this is an important point. society already subsidizes the care of underinsured americans. unfortunately, it is more costly to have underinsured compatriots who intermitently require high intensity, expensive care that could have been prevented with regular ongoing, or more cost effective care. see here: Insured Americans Had Paid a “Hidden Tax” of $44,536,111,077 since January 1, 2009 in Additional Premium Costs to Cover Care for the Uninsured http://www.majorityleader.gov/members/health_care.cfm |
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