Don’t Blame the Uninsured

In the debate over health care, there is a widely held belief that uninsured people are clogging the nation’s emergency rooms to receive free care for minor ailments. As President Bush fatuously proclaimed last year: “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

A provocative new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association calls that belief into question but leaves another troublesome implication: that many uninsured patients are simply going without needed care until they become so sick that they can’t stay away.

Emergency rooms are legally obligated to treat real emergencies without regard to a patient’s ability to pay, and many end up providing care that is less than urgent.

Researchers at the University of Michigan reviewed 127 studies and found that many uninsured patients do seek nonurgent care in emergency rooms. But they do not make up a disproportionate share of such patients, perhaps because they know that they will be billed for the costly visit and have no insurance to cover it. Only 17 percent of emergency room visits in this country are made by uninsured patients, but they add to the financial strain on many hospitals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/opinion/30thu3.html?th&emc=th