If it is free it will be misused

Report from Australia

Almost a third of NSW residents visit a hospital emergency department each year, with most admitting they did not need to be there, figures show. Some attended more than 50 times a year, with one mental health patient clocking up 249 visits. Most took the easy option of a trip to the emergency department because their GPs were not available or they wanted easy access to a wide range of medical services. Young people were the worst offenders, with an increasing number bypassing GPs altogether.

Amazingly, 26 per cent of people visiting emergency departments were frequent users, attending on "multiple" occasions. Forty-four per cent of the people attending emergency departments had conditions which could have been treated by a GP, and that figure is growing by 6 per cent each year.

Emergency departments were being used as a substitute for other treatment options, a confidential NSW Health report states. "Such a high number of repeat visitors suggests that emergency departments are possibly managing people with potentially chronic problems who may otherwise have been treated in a specialised clinic or by their GP," the report states.

It shows that GPs were more reluctant to do minor procedures like mole removal in-house, for fear of litigation. The fear of being sued has caused a reduction in the number of GPs who provide an after-hours service. GPs were now 34 per cent more likely to be sued than 10 years ago, the Booz Allen Hamilton report found, and their insurance premiums had increased between 120 and 220 per cent.

GPs surveyed for the report said they were working shorter hours to avoid burn-out. The number of GPs working full-time had fallen from 93 per cent in 2004-05 to 85 per cent.

Australian Medical Association president Rosanna Capolingua said pressure on emergency departments could be relieved by extending GP hours and increasing Medicare rebates on after-hours GP visits.

Health Minister Reba Meagher said 2.3million people went to a public emergency department last year, up 8 per cent on the previous year and well above the population increase. "This report backs up the anecdotal evidence that more people are making our public hospital emergency departments their first point of call for medical treatment because they can't access a GP when they need one," Ms Meagher said. "There is no doubt that the changing nature of general practice is having an impact on our public hospitals."

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Obamacare?

Post below lifted from Surber. See the original for links

Medicaid "savings" kill an Illinois hospital. Way to go, government-run health care.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois likes to brag how Medicaid keeps its costs down. It keeps its costs down by shifting them on to people who are not on Medicaid or Medicare. And that is about to cost Blue Island, Ill., a 103-year-old hospital, St. Francis, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. When I read the headline, I immediately diagnosed the problem: Medicaid. I was correct. It took the reporter 22 paragraphs to finally get to the source of St. Francis Hospital's woes:

Half of its emergency room patients and one of every four patients admitted to the hospital either have no health insurance or are covered by Medicaid, SSM said. Platt said Medicaid reimbursement levels in Illinois haven't been increased in 15 years. "Most of the people without insurance cannot afford to pay us anything, and Medicaid pays us less than what it costs us to provide care," Ryan said. "No hospital can survive over the long term without being able to cover its costs." She warned that what happened to St. Francis could happen to other hospitals.

The government does not keep the promises it makes. Every single government-run health care plan does the same thing: Cuts reimbursements and watches doctors leave and hospitals close in the wake.