Mr. Romney - On Behalf of ER Doctors and Nurses Everywhere... [View all]

Last edited Mon Sep 24, 2012, 12:20 PM - Edit history (1)

I'd just like to tell you, stop now. Enough is enough. Of all the asinine, morally objectionable, ethically wrong-headed and just downright IGNORANT statements you have made (just in the past week!), this one takes the cake.

The ER is not designed for Universal Care. It is designed for life-threatening emergencies. And yes, I know you were speaking of a "heart attack", but good God man, don't you realize people already use the ER for primary care? Don't you realize that's why people die in ERs, why people die every day, why the doctors and nurses are so overworked they can barely take care of the hordes of UNINSURED sick people streaming through the door as it is?

Do you think ER care is free? Have you ever seen an ER bill? Do you know how many people have filed bankruptcy over an ER bill and/or uninsured hospital stay? How out-of-touch with reality are you, really?

Now you tell us, "this is how we take care of our uninsured"? Even when you were Governor, you realized what a burden this put on the health care system. How much it raised costs on EVERYBODY, on the state, on the facilities. In the name of all that is right and good, is there nothing you won't say to get elected? Is there no end to your utter stupidity?

If I sound angry, I am. Because I *am* an ER nurse. I know how wrong you are...and so do you.

Videos At Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/24/romney-calls-emergency-room-a-health-care-option-for-uninsured/

Romney Now: In his interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pointed to emergency rooms as a form of health care for people without insurance.

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” Romney told interviewer Scott Pelley. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Romney Then: But Romney’s position is a shift from 2010, when he told MSNBC that part of the impetus for the Massachusetts health-care law was to keep people out of the ER.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility,” he said.