White Coats and Paid Bills

I don’t pretend to be an uninterested bystander in the health care debate. I admit that, being married to a doctor, this is something that will fundamentally affect everything that happens to my family over the course of our lives. But, I am honest in saying that my opinion in this matter is focused much more directly on what I feel is right, rather than what I want from the situation. I suppose that is why I disagree with all of the propaganda my husband and I have been getting from doctor’s organizations. If you didn’t catch my commentary on the AMA’s position, find it here.

This week we got something from another organization: The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). My husband is a member of this organization. Like the AMA, he was signed up for his affiliation by the residency program he is in. He did not review their policies or endorse their agenda. He hasn’t paid them a dime. But, since he is a member, we get front row seats to the propaganda battle being wages in the United States. Last week, ACEP decided it was time to dispel the myths being dispersed by the proponents of Obama Care. Here are some of the observations they made:

Myth: Emergency medical care is expensive and inefficient. Reducing emergency care will “bend the cost curve” on our nation’s rising health care costs.

The Facts:
• The 120 million annual visits made to emergency departments account for only 3% of all health care spending.
• Emergency departments are equipped with state-of- the-art diagnostic equipment and highly trained physicians who can draw on many hospital resources quickly, providing coordinated, efficient patient care.
• The fixed costs of being open 24/7 are high, but the variable costs for seeing patients in the emergency department are the same as anywhere else care is provided.

Myth: Emergency departments are crowded with patients seeking non-urgent care.

The Facts:
• Only 12.1% of emergency patients have non-urgent conditions that could wait 2 to 24 hours for medical care, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• Crowded conditions and longer wait times are primarily caused by patients being “boarded,” or forced to stay in the emergency department – often on gurneys lining the hallways - long after they have been seen and admitted to the hospital.

Myth: Your local emergency department will always be there when you need it.

The Facts:
• Hundreds of emergency departments have closed nationwide because of an overburdened emergency care system.
• The nation’s emergency departments must accommodate an average increase of 3 million more patient visits each year.
• Every 60 seconds emergency care is delayed when an ambulance is diverted to a distant hospital because a nearer one is unable to accept more patients.
• Seventy-five percent (75%) of emergency department directors report significant problems getting needed on-call specialists, such as neurosurgeons and orthopedists, to provide vital on-call services to emergency patients.

Myth: The need for emergency care will decrease when health care reform is enacted.

The Facts:
• With a growing and aging population, our role in providing care to the sick and injured any time day or night, and our front line responsibility in responding to natural and man-made disasters, will be in even greater demand.
• Since enacting its universal health care legislation, Massachusetts has experienced an increase in emergency department patients. • Emergency medicine is an essential community service that is vitally important to our nation’s health care system.

WAIT A MINUTE! The whole pitch being made to the American public is based on the idea that poor people without insurance are showing up in the Nation’s Emergency Rooms and costing us tons of money. You mean that’s simply NOT TRUE? You want to know another fact? It is a fact that studies have shown there is no discernible difference in the health of the insured vs. the uninsured.

Here’s the disturbing part. Following these facts, ACEP says that they support a government option. Why? It will cost us more, take away from physician autonomy and not help in the things everyone keeps promising, according to your own facts. Well. I suppose that if everyone had insurance, more Emergency bills would be paid (at least theoretically).

Huh.

So are the physician proponents of Government Healthcare the ones who care? Or are they part of big business and propaganda like those grassroots physicians assembled at the White House yesterday?