Boarding, Bed-Hiding, and Other Dangers of Appearing Poor
Concurring Opinions:
The US’s troubled ER’s came into media focus again recently as a woman waiting for care collapsed and was ignored by hospital personnel:
Zachary F. Meisel and Jesse M. Pines have done a great job exposing how our health care finance system plays an important role in such tragedies:
[W]hat’s largely missing from this story is the likely cause of Green’s pulmonary embolism. The answer lies in a . . . systematic and widespread danger in hospital care: E.R. waits. Why was Green sitting and waiting while blood pooled in her legs? Despite increasing evidence that crowded E.R.s can be hazardous to your health, hospitals have incentives to keep their E.R. patients waiting. As a result, there has been an explosion in E.R. wait times over the past few years, even for those who are the sickest.