Sunday, November 17, 2013

Hospitals Refusing Insurance Plans

I'm going to write about this just because it's creepy and it keeps crossing my mind, so I'll share.  When I read that hospitals will be refusing some insurance plans, I became curious as to how they intend to stay in business.  Insurance has been calling the hospitalization shots for years, but for hospitals to just turn down certain plans and companies sounded like a pretty major statement.

A friend of mine worked was a pharmacy tech at hospital that had been closed for traditional patient care and exclusively cared for unconscious patients on ventilators.  That of course, reminded me of an old sci-fi movie, Coma, in which Tom Selleck was one of the healthy patients that slipped into a coma.  The plot revolved around a doctor who was harvesting transplant organs for sale on the black market, so it was healthy patients who did not awaken from routine surgeries.

In reading about Dick Cheney's heart transplant and subsequent interview, every article mentioned the shortage of organs for the transplant programs.  Now, before you think I'm suggesting something of evil intent like "death panels" relax, I'm not a republican.  What I am suggesting is that a number of people will be refused health care based upon cost, rather than care and empty hospital buildings could very soon become intercity housing for people falling under the weight of this so-called "economic recovery . . ."

I don't think they'll keep people on vents to harvest organs, as it's very costly to maintain people in that condition.  I do think it's possible that empty hospital buildings could end up in use for some sort human warehousing, though.  We can already see the older structures in many downtowns as hospitals have moved toward the outer suburbs and established "campuses."  With homelessness being the issue that it is, I could see empty hospital buildings becoming FEMA HUD projects.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  New Testament

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