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Rush Limbaugh, vacationing in what some of his fellow pundits call a foreign country was rushed to the emergency room with chest pains. After his stay, during which he underwent an angioplasty, and nothing was found, he did have serious love for his care. We should all be so lucky to have his means, or to live in Hawaii.
Here are some of his remarks (in bold), and one health care provider's take on them.The people here at Queen's Hospital could not have been better. I feel very, very fortunate. I have been treated to the best health care the world has to offer -- and that is right here in the United States of America.
The people here at Queen's Hospital could not have been better. I feel very, very fortunate. I have been treated to the best health care the world has to offer -- and that is right here in the United States of America.
You can get the best health the world has to offer if you have the money to pay for it. Rush Limbaugh does not have health care insurance. He is self-insured. If you earned $33 million a year, an insurance plan would be a waste of money, and actually limit the amount of treatment you would get. But if you can't afford it, you will not be getting the best care in the world. On most public health care measures-such as life expectancy or infant mortality--we do worse than all advanced nations, and we are even behind some poor, developing countries. If you earn as much as Limbaugh, it also doesn't matter where you live. If you don't like the health care where you live, you can travel wherever you want to go-and in a private jet.
Any time you have heart pain or chest pain and you have no idea what it is, and it's something you've never experienced before, turn it over to professionals right off the bat. Don't tough it out. Don't try to make it go away on your own, because it's not worth the risk.
Elsewhere, he told people to head right over to the emergency room. It is true that the law requires emergency rooms to treat anyone who walks or is wheeled into them, but it's not that simple. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed. According to an Institute of Medicine report from 2006, Hospital-Based Emergency Care: At the Breaking Point, in 2003, there were 114 million emergency room visits, a rise from the 90 million of 1993. But over the same period, the number of hospital emergency departments declined by 425, and the number of hospital beds declined by 198,000. Emergency room crowding is a hospital-wide problem-patients back up in the emergency room because they can not get admitted to inpatient beds. As a result, patients are often "boarded"-held in the emergency room until an inpatient bed becomes available-for 48 hours or more. Also, ambulances are frequently diverted from overcrowded emergency rooms to other hospitals that may be farther away and may not have the optimal services. In 2003, ambulances were diverted 501,000 times-an average of once every minute.
One reason for the overutiliziatlion of emergency rooms, is because they are required to treat everyone. People with questionable emergencies but illnesses may have no alternative.
Once you're in. Can you pay? Although the law requires that you be treated in the emergency room, once you're stabilized, if you don't have insurance, you're in trouble. Putting aside the fact that the emergency room can reject you for treatment-insurance or not-if you don't have a medical emergency, if you don't have insurance, you will receive a bill for the services, which could be in the thousands for a day of care. Inability to pay for medical care is the number one reason for bankruptcy filings in the U.S. And if you don't have insurance, chances are you will not be admitted. If you're lucky, you might be transferred to a public hospital. If you're unlucky, you might be dumped on the street. In Los Angeles, College Hospital, agreed in April 2009, to a settlement with the City Attorney for dumping more than 150 homeless patients on skid row over a two-year period.
Again, the treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer. Based on what happened to me here, I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system. It's working just fine, just dandy. And I got nothing special. I got no special treatment other than what anybody else that would have called 911 would have gotten had they been brought in with the same kinds of symptoms. The care was extensive, it was personal, and it was complete, and it was very confidence-inspiring. And I never once -- once I got here -- had any fears, because of the manner in which I was treated.
So, to review, it's not true that Limbaugh "got nothing special"-except, maybe, in Hawaii. According to the Service Employees International Union, a regular Limbaugh punching bag, his experiences were an endorsement of the Hawaii system. The state has required all employers to insure all 20-hour or more employee since 1974. According to the SEIU, "Limbaugh stayed at Queen's Medical Center, where nursing staff are represented by the Hawaii Nurse's Association (read: a labor union).
In fact, Hawaii has one of the greatest percentages of organized workers of any state and also had the highest percentage of organized RNs. All private-sector acute care hospital RNs are organized, with just two known exceptions. We're guessing this might have something to do with why Limbaugh found the Hawaii hospital staff's work so ‘confidence-inspiring.'"
In another state, had Limbaugh not been identified, and didn't have an insurance card, he might now be wandering on skid row.
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My book, Nasty, Brutish, and Long: Adventures in Old Age and the World of Eldercare (Avery/Penguin, 2009) provides a unique, insider's perspective on aging in America. It is an account of my work as a psychologist in nursing homes, the story of caregiving to my frail, elderly parents--all to th accompaniment of ruminations on my own mortality. Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking calls it "A book for policy makers, caregivers, the halt and lame, the upright and unemcumbered: anyone who ever intends to get old."
