GOP Lawmaker Says Emergency Rooms Should Be Able To Turn People Away - Polidicks

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) proposed on Friday that hospital emergency rooms should be able to turn patients away to help keep health care costs down. “I’m an emergency room nurse,” Black told MSNBC host Chuck Todd on Friday. “There are people that came into my emergency room that I, the nurse, was the first one to see them. I could have sent them to a walk-in clinic or their doctor the next day, but because of a law that Congress put into place to say, no, I have to treat everybody that walks into that emergency room.” “You took away our ability to say, ‘No, an emergency room is not the proper place.’ And then, you put a burden on top of that to say, ‘You must do that,’” added the congresswoman, who is also running for governor of Tennessee. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/diane-black-emergency-rooms_us_59e674cce4b0d0e4fe6bd0ee What a fucking cunt, I swear.

uh seems like they already have the ability to turn people away in that they see you, decide what to do, then refer you onwards to a doctor if you do not have time sensitive or life threatening conditions but then in libertarian land only you are entitled to everything, everybody else can fuckoff. that's how to run a perfectly functional society right?

Independent of the article: Knowing a few nurses, they'll often tell me there's a serious problem with drug abusers who try to abuse the emergency room system and clog up lines trying to get pain-killers day in and day out. I think everyone should be given the right to care in the ER, but I do think there needs to be better measures in place for preventing the same person from going 5 days a week to the ER for the same phantom pain.

Reading the full article, I think the law could use a revision. If someone comes into an emergency room for treatment of something that is very obviously not an emergency then maybe you could make that argument that they shouldn't be clogging up emergency resources. But considering the context of why the law was put up in the first place and the fact that Black's wanting full repeal of the law instead of a revision still makes this a short-sighted thing for her to say. I wonder if there's any statistics on people abusing emergency services? It sounds like her statement is based on personal anecdotes but I'd be interested to see if this is some sort of problem that actually needs addressing.

"Sigh, thanks to 'laws' we have to treat people who come to the 'emergency room'. What a pain in the aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaass" fuck you, lady

The idea makes sense. There are a ton of people who would be better served and put less of a stress on the system in regards to the prehospital and ER setting by being referred to an urgent care facility or something similar. At the rescue squad I run at we've taken tons of people to our local ER who just.... don't need to go. Lots of shit that can wait until the next day, and free up hands on the floor for actual emergencies.

My mother works in the ER and she says the same thing, there are a lot of people who just plain don't need to be in the ER, but rather a different facility. Hell, she can't even count the amount of people she's seen come in with the common cold. Like, if you really need treatment for that set up an appointment with your doctor or go to an urgent care facility.

There is some possible logic behind this but seeing as its the Republicans the actual rules would be that they turn you away if you're black or latino.

I know this is just a driveby throwaway shitpost but I really hope that people aren't turned off the idea because of the letter next to the ladies name.

While I think most of us agree that people who don't actually need an ER visit should be going to their physician/other, I absolutely do not trust the Republicans to use any laws allowing ERs to turn people away properly or honestly. It seems too easily abused (e.g. turning people away for "religious reasons") and lawmakers seem to not put much thought into their legislation these days. The laws could very easily be corrupted into something else that, while it may capture the spirit of keeping people who don't belong in the ER out, very likely extend to exclude those who really need to be there for other reasons.

Uhhh, no? And kindly fuck off?! You're a disgrace to this state you selfish bitch. You don't want this law repealed to free up the ER for actual emergencies, you want it repealed because the poor will be turned away due to inability to pay. With how expensive ER visits in America are I do not understand the logic of that. Honestly, if I can still limp along at all, I'm not going into the ER. If I can still drive it isn't a fucking emergency and I'm going nowhere near an ER.

Thing is, usually after a specific time, ER is your only choice no matter how major or minor your ailment is.

Maybe I'm missing something here but I'm not seeing how lawmakers are going to use this law for anything. I'd imagine it'd be charge nurses and ER docs making the call on this at the ER, not an elected elected official.

I don't mean officials will be turning away people, I mean the policy or law itself may have room to allow doctors or nurses to turn people away for reasons which, for example, could pertain to religious reasons. This is a common occurrence with Republican made laws recently, and can be seen especially when pertaining to LGBT people whereas they can be denied service, etc. by a provider for a "religious reason." Republicans use Christianity as a tool to work around people they don't like.

There should also be better avenues for treatment for people that do abuse drugs, painkillers or not.

Dunno man. I always assume it's people with fairly high deductibles that they're already tapped out on. I think on our plan mine is like $200 or $250. I haven't needed an ER visit in years, thankfully.

Don't people go to emergency rooms for trivial stuff because they cant afford normal preventative care and can get emergency room bills forgiven more often?

I like this, but I would like to also see Urgent Care facilities attached or very close to the emergency rooms to refer the patients to. This would be shot down so quickly with a lawsuit that the hospital would have new owners.

i would say our sample size of three ER nurse mothers posted about in this thread is probably good enough to gather that there is some level of a problem.

Maybe people use the ER because they have to be treated and lack proper health coverage or ability to afford it, and by having comprehensive universal healthcare, more people would be willing to see a clinic or GP instead of clogging the emergency room.

Well, sure, it's enough to see the problem exists but I would still prefer to know some empirically-measured impact before we go changing or repealing legislation. Some injuries you can initially walk off can later become life-threatening. A few years ago a coworker of my dad's fell off a ladder while putting up Christmas lights. It was obvious he was injured but he was able to walk inside, tell his family and a friend what had happened, get in the car unassisted, and had a relatively calm and optimistic ride to the emergency room. No one for a minute suspected that his injuries were fatal, but a few days later he died in the hospital from massive internal hemorrhaging in his abdomen. It's just one of those things you can't be too flippant about, so please exercise your best judgment.