Too many Americans who are uninsured or under-insured do not receive regular checkups because they can't afford coverage or their insurance doesn't cover enough of the costs. The lack of preventive care results in countless emergency room visits and health care disasters for families.
There's only a couple times when fame is ever helpful. Sometimes you can get into a restaurant where the kitchen is just closing. Sometimes you can avoid a traffic violation. But the only time it really matters is in the emergency room with your kids. That's when you want to be noticed, because it's very easy to get forgotten in an ER.
Care shouldn't start in the emergency room.
I had a bike accident a few years ago, and I went to the emergency room, and I had to have a gash sewn up. And I am the kind of person that I was sitting up fascinated, watching, to the extent that the doctor said, 'Do you want to do a couple of stitches? You seem to be very interested.'
When my dad was badly weakened by the flu and my mom wanted to call an ambulance to take him to the emergency room, he wouldn't go unless he could shave first and change into a nice shirt and a pair of slacks.
Look, if you have somebody who doesn't have health insurance, who doesn't have a doctor or dentist, and in order to deal with their cold or flu or dental problem, they go to an emergency room - in general, that visit will cost ten times more than walking into a community health center.
Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room.
Moreover, health center services save money and lives by treating diseases before they become chronic conditions, require hospital care or require a trip to the emergency room.
When the headache persisted, I checked myself into an emergency room. When the doctor used the term 'brain tumour', I feared the worst. My whole world shrank around me.
If you're not paying for it through the health plan, you pay for it in the emergency room.