- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Patients
lacking health insurance are flooding U.S. emergency rooms, many seeking
routine care that they should get elsewhere, a group representing government-funded
clinics reported on Monday.
-
- The report by The National Association of Community Health
Centers finds that in 2002 there were 110.2 million visits to hospital
emergency departments, up from 89.8 million in 1998. During this time,
many hospital emergency rooms closed and there were 15 percent fewer than
in 1998, the report found.
-
- "What this report reveals are the very serious holes
in our health care system that are getting bigger," said Dr. Monica
Sweeney, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Bedford Stuyvesant Family
Health Center in Brooklyn, New York.
-
- "I see evidence of this every day at our health
center, where uninsured patients are lining up at the door. Many of the
patients I see waited longer than they should have before coming to see
a doctor because they didn't have insurance or worried about how much the
care would cost."
-
- For its study, the group went through published reports
and analyzed data from the Health and Human Services Department. All 1,000
or so federally funded community health centers provide the data annually
to HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration.
-
- It found the number of uninsured patients getting care
at the centers -- which must provide care regardless of ability to pay
-- grew by 11 percent during 2003 alone.
-
- "Some health centers are experiencing an explosion
of uninsured patients as high as 73 percent, and due to a weakened economy
and state budget cuts, no letup is in sight," the report reads.
-
- "Fewer doctors open their doors to patients who
rely on Medicaid. One-fifth are not accepting any new Medicaid patients,"
it said. Medicaid is the state-federal health insurance plan for the poor.
-
- An estimated 43 million Americans lack health insurance
and either go without health care or rely on nonprofit, community centers.
Or they visit emergency rooms which, by law, must provide basic, needed
care.
-
- The Center for Studying Health System Change estimates
that 63 percent of Americans aged under 65 got health insurance through
an employer in 2003.
-
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