In the “You Can’t Be Serious” category… Does McCain’s Health Care Advisor “not believe in the uninsured?”
In an interview yesterday, McCain’s top health care advisor, John Goodman (he also calls himself “The Father of Health Savings Accounts” — something I wouldn’t brag about) said that the term “uninsured” is a misnomer because Americans can access health care through the emergency room.
As an expert in cancer care and how that care is delivered to patients, I can categorically say that access to an emergency room is not the same as “access to health care.” If you’re a cancer patient, what you need is access to expensive pharmaceuticals, experienced physicians, and expert oncology nurses who will actually hook up your chemotherapy IV and treat you for the disease. I’ve never seen someone get their cycle of AC+T chemotherapy at the emergency room (which isn’t to say it’s never happened, but I’m having trouble thinking it might).
An emergency department can’t turn you away if you’re in need of “immediate” care, but what if you’re just fatigued and feeling bad, or experiencing fevers that come and go… these are symptoms of cancer, but I think you’d have trouble getting care from the emergency room unless something else went terribly wrong to send you there in the first place. And if you have to have a mastectomy for breast cancer, is the emergency room going to help you get reconstructive surgery afterwards? I doubt it.
The problem of the uninsured is real, and it’s not going away. Instead of ignoring the problem, we need to find ways to tackle it in this country.
(and if you’re interested in reading about the economics of health savings accounts, which I’ll post about another day, try this first — one of the best articles I’ve ever read on health or medical savings accounts and how they work.)
