Jail Time for Those without Health Care Insurance

November 11, 2009

ABCNews

By Sunien Miller

During an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Jake Tapper today, President Obama said that penalties are appropriate for people who try to “free ride” the health care system but stopped short of endorsing the threat of jail time for those who refuse to pay a fine for not having insurance.

“What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don’t, you’re subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it’s affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there’s a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are — are burdened by because of the fact that people don’t have health insurance, you know, there’s nothing wrong with a penalty.”
Under the House bill those who can afford to buy insurance and don’t’ pay a fine. If the refuse to pay that fine there’s a threat – as with a lot of tax fines – of jail time. The Senate removed that provision in the Senate Finance Committee.

Mr. Obama said penalties have to be high enough for people to not game the system, but it’s also important to not be “so punitive” that people who are having a hard time find themselves suddenly worse off, thus why hardship exemptions have been built in the legislation.

“I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their health insurance aren’t subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they get sick and then suddenly they expect free health insurance.  That’s — that’s basic concept of responsibility that I think most Americans abide by,” Mr. Obama said, “penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their health insurance.”

The President said that he didn’t think the question over the appropriateness of possible jail time is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now.

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Swine Flu Surge Closes Schools, Tests Hospitals

September 27, 2009

The Washington Post

By Rob Stein

In Austin, so many parents are rushing their children to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas with swine flu symptoms that the hospital had to set up tents in the parking lot to cope with the onslaught.

In Memphis, the Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center emergency room got so crowded with feverish, miserable youngsters that it had to do the same thing.

And in Manning, S.C., a private school where an 11-year-old girl died shut down after the number of students who were out sick with similar symptoms reached nearly a third of the student body.

“It just kind of snowballed,” said Kim Jordan, a teacher at the Laurence Manning Academy, which closed Wednesday after Ashlie Pipkin died, and the number of ill students hit 287. “We had several teachers out also. That was the reason to close the school — so everyone could just be away from one another for a few days.”

After months of warnings and frantic preparations, the second wave of the swine flu pandemic is starting to be felt around the country, as doctors, health clinics, hospitals and schools are reporting rapidly increasing numbers of patients experiencing flu symptoms.

“H1N1 is spreading widely throughout the U.S.,” said Thomas R. Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta during a briefing on Friday. At least 26 states, including Maryland and Virginia, are now reporting widespread flu activity, up from 21 a week earlier, the CDC reported. “H1N1 activity is now widespread,” Frieden said.

While so far most cases are mild, and the health-care system is handling the load, officials say the number of people seeking treatment for the flu is unprecedented for this time of year. Even though some parts of the Southeast that started seeing a surge of cases first now seem to be showing a decline in cases, that could be a temporary reprieve, Frieden said. And other parts of the country are likely just starting to feel the second wave.

Maryland health authorities on Friday said a Baltimore-area youth with an underlying health problem had died of swine flu, the state’s first such fatality involving a youth.

Despite new federal guidelines aimed at keeping schools open, the pandemic has already prompted scattered school closings around the country in recent weeks, including 42 schools that closed in eight states on Friday, affecting more than 16,000 students.

Many colleges and universities have been hit particularly hard, forcing some to open separate dorms for sick students. Ninety-one percent of the 267 colleges and universities being surveyed by the American College Health Association are now reporting cases.

At the Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, the number of patients coming in each day shot up from about 180 to a peak of more than 400, prompting officials to erect a 2,500-square foot tent in the parking lot to handle the surge. More than 300 patients are still coming in every day.

“What we initially did was try to bring in extra folks, but you soon run out of extra people and extra spaces to put people,” said Barry Gilmore, the hospital’s medical director for emergency services.

Doctors, nurses, paramedics or other workers screen patients in the tent and decide who can safely go home. Anyone with other health problems that put them at risk, such as asthma, heart disease or kidney disease, is sent immediately to the emergency room. All patients who are sent home are contacted within 24 to 48 hours to make sure they are recovering.

“We are mostly dealing with the worried well or kids who are mildly ill but not severely ill,” he said.

At least 14 patients, however, were admitted to the hospital and perhaps six required intensive care, he said. One teenager died.

Swine flu, also known as H1N1, tends to strike more younger people than the usual seasonal flu. At least 49 children have died from complications caused by the virus so far in the United States.

At the Dell Children’s Medical Center, the number of patients coming in each day shot up from about 180 to more than 340, prompting the hospital to require staff to work extra shifts and erect two tents outside the emergency room to handle the overflow and keep possibly infected patients separate from others.

“We are able to take care of them really rapidly without a long wait, and they don’t have to be mixed in with other patients who do not have the flu,” said Pat Crocker, chief of emergency medicine. “It’s been highly efficient.”

But Crocker, noting that the hospital is already busier than it was in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said the hospital has a third tent ready to be set up.

Click here to continue reading the full article from the Washington Post