1 Comment November 27th, 2009

What are some of the ways that access to health care can be measured?

Linda k asked:


What are some of the ways that access to health care can be measured?

Caffeinated Content
This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 3:58 am and is filed under Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “What are some of the ways that access to health care can be measured?”

  1. heyteach Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 11:59 pm

    Website content

    Access is a good question. Theoretically anyone has access to our health care. However, as there has been more aggressive “collecting” to outright predatory lending (see) AND more documented corruption in the handful of large insurers (see)
    many patients do NOT seek health care they know they cannot afford. I know because I am one of those patients, typically uninsured. I had a heart attack–knew I was having one–and did NOT seek help because I knew what the bill likely would be. I would live or die by God’s will. Years later I did have insurance and had a crisis with BP–more than 200/100+ which is stroke territory. I did go to the ER and the EKG they insisted on doing (I knew it was not my heart) revealed my prior MI. So I was effectively denied access when I had my heart attack (knew the costs), but technically I was not denied access because I didn’t go to be saddled with a bankrupting bill. (More than half of all bankruptcies in the US are for medical bills AND most of those folks have insurance.)

    So you can’t get a very good measure of access. Illegals pour in for free treatment with impunity. If an American does that, he may or may not get away with it.

    Once you may have health care, such as Medicare, your rights are also limited because of the rules regarding what doctors have to do with Medicare, what they can charge, etc. If you’re rich and/or famous, you have no worries. If you’re a member of the working poor WITHOUT health insurance, you have limited options. It runs a gamut and there will be NO good measure that informed people can view as a good measure.