I promise the first time I saw a black person in my area was in the late 1990s, yet we did get people like those you describe in ERs. Well, 'cept for the shades range going from “tanned” to “keep in the shadow pale pink”. The “lady” who had a friend (who’s about 4’10", so petite she needed her hospital gown tailored because the XXXS was too large for her) ready to commit murder was an extremely pale German who expected Spanish ER personnel to speak perfect High German and to admit her 5yo who’d OH NOES! skinned his knee when he fell on the sand at the beach! The horrors! Friend asked whether it would be illegal to give tetanus shots to kid and hel-o-mom both. In her case, with the big needle. The doctor in charge said it would probably be legal but why would she subject the poor tetanus bugs to such a torture?
Not so much a law, but a stipulation for receiving public money. The local public hospital has to take anyone. If you qualify the cost is not charged to you and prescriptions have a fifty cent co-pay. There was a bit of an up-roar a few year ago when they tried to raise the co-pay to two dollars. But if you have a job but no insurance you get a big fat bill.
Everybody but those living under bridges or in the park have glass. I’ve worked in homeless shelters and The Federal Reserve Bank. This is very true. That’s just people, they all suck each in their own special way.
I take umbrage to this. You watched a show so you KNOW? You’re an expert? Live in it, eat it, wear it. We try to make to do and we make it work. For decades we were put down for not asking for the “help” (?) we could get.
This is exactly why we don’t trust outsiders even today. Your misguided ignorance is laced with superiority. We don’t need it.
I could just spit.
Are you black? I’ve pictured you as a pierced, tattooed whitish “grunge” girl with an inquiring mind and definate opinon of your own.
I think I got the last part right High five.
Aaaand I’m bowing out of the Dope again.
I started an honest discussion about something I was experiencing and 2/3 of the conversation is about wether I am lying or that I am a racist. The other 1/3 are thoughtful responses. It’s just not worth it.
To have a decent conversation you need to write a perfect dissertation. Who needs it?
So what you’re saying is that first the blacks ruined your job and now they’ve ruined your thread?
Hide yo kids, hide yo wife and hide yo husband 'cause they be ruining everything up in here.
Edit: Nzinga, did I use “be” correctly?
You calm the fuck down. I live her right in the goddamn middle of it. Go ahead, PM me and ask where, then ask what my minor was, if you can’t figure it out. And if you live here, too, and have ever visited a Walmart around the first of the month, you’ve seen them. And real the whole thread before you go on the attack next time, I cautioned against assuming that all poor white Appalachians behave this way, just as no one should assume all poor urban work the emergency healthcare system.
Jesus. I knew you as one of the more level headed posters.
You illustrate my point.
Sorry, forgot to turn off email notifications.
seem like going into it you might have realized it would be a touchy subject. 1/3 thoughtful responses? sounds good to me.
why not be happy with that? 
You remind me of a guy who walks into an ER and gets all rude and pissed off when people don’t defer to him the way he thinks they should.
If you had wanted an honest discussion, you would have explained why so many credible sources contradict your claims. Instead, you just called me ignorant.
Don’t let the doorknob hit you where the good lord split you.
- We own a lake cottage in Southwestern Kentucky, which is a very poor area of the country. The area was struggling before the economic crisis. As you can imagine, there are lots of well-meaning federal programs to give these people a hand up, including job training and tuition grants.
My neighbors (locals) tell us that at the beginning of the semester, the parking lot is full at the community college. But there is a certain date each semester after which the “students” aren’t required to pay the money back to the government if they withdraw from the course. They always know what date that is because the following day, the parking lot is nearly empty. Instead of using the money to better their lives, hundreds of people are simply showing up long enough to personally pocket the partial refund. The government is throwing away hundreds of thousand of dollars on these people, and they don’t even have the grace to feel badly about it.
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My Uncle used to be a paramedic for the City of Cincinnati. They had issues with one fellow who’d constantly use the ambulance as his personal taxi service. Whenever he wanted to go see his mother, who lived near University Hospital, he’d simply fake an emergency to hitch a ride up the hill. He’d say the magic words “I have a pain in my chest” and they’d be compelled to transport him. When they arrived at hospital, he’d sign the paperwork refusing to be admitted, and off he’d go to Mom’s house. Did he care that he risked delaying a truly emergent patient because they were taxiing his lazy ass around? Nope.
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My friend works for a very respected medical group. Part of her job is to train doctors on the ins and outs of Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement.
She knows, for instance, that her doctors will be reimbursed $1100 for an outpatient laparoscopic hernia surgery if that patient has private insurance. If they perform the same procedure on a Medicare or Medicaid patient, they will only be reimbursed $300, which means they’d actually lose money on that case. However, if the patient has to be admitted overnight, they will be reimbursed $900.
Not surprisingly, every single Medicare or Medicaid patient coincidentally develops symptoms that require an overnight stay. They even code the paperwork a certain color to illuminate the fact that they should be admitted.
A common thread in all of these cases is not the color of their skin, but a lack of conscience or a feeling of entitlement from the people receiving the benefit.
The other obvious issue is that there are inherent flaws in the system. Our lawmakers should be working hard to close these loopholes to try and contain the leakage.
Haaaa! Yes! And you be crackin’ me up! Not now. I mean, yes now, but not just right now, or else I would be using ‘be’ wrong. So, yes now, but also, often, and usually, you be crackin’ me up.
[QUOTE=Becky2844]
Are you black?
[/QUOTE]
Becky, I am the blackest girl you know. My ass is blacker than Harriet Tubman’s and Malcolm X’s love child. Feel free to list me anytime you need to show your non racist bona fides.
Newcrasher, I don’t think you are being fair. You have received helpful advice. This is a heavy subject, and some of your responses are going to be not what you wanted.
“…racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”
― Chris Crutcher, Whale Talk
the OP be showing too thin a skin, he flounced out and now will miss talk about Nzinga’s ass and other fun. 
This notion has been covered ad nauseum on the Dope. You can’t do that.
But that’s not buying liquor and cigarettes with food stamps. And “food stamps” don’t exist anymore in that format. You have a plastic EBT card, and you can’t use it to buy booze and cigs. You can use it to buy something allowed and trade/sell it for actual money to buy booze and cigs. Is that possible to do? Sure. It’s possible to sell drugs and stolen hubcaps, too, but we don’t say people are buying booze and cigs with hubcaps and weed, do we? No, we don’t.
Newcrasher, in the off chance you happen to be reading … isnt this thread like a microcosm of the ER experience itself? There will be jerks … (not referring to the post directly above.)
“Nonchalantly side-stepping your bullshit since the dawn of time.” Spock
Rock on and look for the good in everyone, or else side step it. Its a job and you can always get some good stories out of it (and some brothers/sisters in arms from working in the trenches) to tell your g-kids about later.
Under my present association with the lower class/poor folks I’d say the noncompliance is as much due to poverty and lack of health coverage as it is to ignorance, stubbornness, or [insert trait of your choice]. As an example, one of my coworkers is an insulin dependent diabetic who has NO health coverage whatsoever (makes too much to be on Medicaid, can’t afford coverage, none offered through emploer). She ran out of money this week. She runs out of insulin today or tomorrow (I forget which - she’s a little vague when panicking). Until the first, when her husband gets his disability check, her family has NO money whatsoever… so she will not be able to get more insulin until Tuesday - oh, wait, that’s a holiday, right? Until Wednesday. If she winds up in the ER before then due to lack of insulin I’m sure she’ll be labeled “noncompliant” although I’m not sure what, exactly, she is supposed to do to remedy this situation. OK, we do strongly suspect her of stealing from the cash register, so maybe she is doing something about it although that’s not the solution anyone really wants her to use. If she’s stealing she’s going to be fired… which means even less money to purchase her very much needed medication.
Yes, yes, she arrived at this point due to some very poor decision-making on her part, but I think the why of noncompliance can be as important as the existence of noncompliance.
According to my sister the MD, quite a few of the suburban types treat the doctors like hired help as well. “I’m PAYING you - you must write me a script for X, Y, and Z!”
^ True.
I don’t work in healthcare (anymore) but some days by the end of the day I’m convinced this group is all one way and this other group is all another way and none of them are flattering characteristics. One of the reasons we can’t have an honest discussion of race in this country, though, is because any time anyone does start honestly discussing their feelings everyone else gets up in arms. We aren’t going to keep improving the social situation (and I do believe we have improved these past few decades) if we don’t allow each other to speak frankly about these things. Including the negative emotions and thoughts we ALL have about people who differ from us.
In fact, whether anyone wants to face it or not, constant exposure to many people who behave in an objectionable manner who all share one particular trait does start to generate prejudice. Such prejudice is NOT based on “ignorance” or “fear” but on experience. As so many have already noted in this thread, the strongest counter to this is positive experiences with that same group. That, really, is the only positive thing in this entire thread, and the appropriate response to the OP, and much better than a kneejerk “you’re racist!” or “you’re ignorant!” response.
Our lawmakers should be revising the system so doctors aren’t compelled to lose money when they treat the poor. They should at least break even when providing treatment.
If the only way to break even is to find a way to admit the patients overnight then they do the right thing by doing just that - blame the system that’s rigged that way, not those caught in the system. What other profession is expected to operate at a loss when providing needed services?