Re: GOP Tea Party Debate: Audience Cheers, Says Society Should Let Uninsured Patient Die
A bit of a startling moment happened near the end of Monday night’s CNN debate when a hypothetical question was posed to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
“What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn’t have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? Are you saying society should just let him die?” Wolf Blitzer asked.
“Yeah!” several members of the crowd yelled out.
Paul interjected to offer an explanation for how this was, more-or-less, the root choice of a free society. He added that communities and non-government institutions can fill the void that the public sector is currently playing.
“We never turned anybody away from the hospital,” he said of his volunteer work for churches and his career as a doctor. “We have given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves … that’s the reason the cost is so high.”
The answer may have struck a truly libertarian tone, but it was clearly overshadowed by the members of the crowd who enthusiastically cheered the prospect of letting a man die rather than picking up the tab for his coverage.
In accordance with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986, hospitals cannot turn a person down for treatment if their injury or illness is determined to be an “emergency”, BUT, said hospital is not obligated to treat someone for free. Additionally, said hospital’s responsibility to the patient with an emergency medical condition only allows for the patient’s stability, not cure. There is no covered follow-up treatment.
If the emergency patient does not pay what is billed to him/her, then the hospital can either sue the patient or send the bill to a collection agency. I had an outstanding bill to a hospital totaling one dollar. I ignored the bill as insignificant. The hospital sent the bill to a collection agency and it then appeared on my credit report as a charge-off. Hospitals are legally mandated to provide treatment but at the same time they have a right to recover the costs from the patients.
The Republicans who want you to believe that all medical care is free and available and all you have to do is just run on down to the emergency room are purposely deceiving you by omission of all the facts. In other words they are lying to you.
OBTW, the audience members who cheered when Wolf Blitzer asked if the hypothetical person should be left to die are the same types of people who agreed that Hitler should just go ahead and dispose of all the European Jews.
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2012 Gop Candidates , Ron Paul 2012 , Ron Paul For President , Wolf Blitzer , Cnn Tea Party Debate , Gop Primary 2012 , Health Care Spending , Wolf Blitzer Cnn Debate , Politics News
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Tea Party Caucus Takes Shape In Senate, Sort of…
Re: Tea Party Caucus Takes Shape In Senate, The Huffington Post, Elyse Siegel
Three. Three guys, Paul, DeMint, and Lee, making some back-room pact does not a caucus make. But! The great thing here is that we may see some fragmentation in the Republican Party. Finally. I knew that they could not hold the wall together forever.
The first rift that jumps right out at you here is the statement: “Republicans in the Senate have already made a pledge to end earmarks and fight for a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” said Paul…”
Not true. Republicans in the Senate are actually pretty closed lip on the subject. This means that the majority of them actually want earmarks to continue. In legal terms, silence is not acceptance. But, I’ll bet the business/corporate lobby/interests in the red states are screaming. Earmarks mean improvements to commerce. They know it, we all know it and welcome it, even those of us on the far left.
Well, I’ve just got to say, three cheers for Rand Paul! The more the Right Wing© divides, the better.