Welcome to sick season.
According to the CDC, New York City — along with New Jersey and at least 16 other states — is now experiencing “high” to “very high” levels of respiratory-illness activity as measured by the number of weekly visits to health-care providers and emergency rooms by people having symptoms of fever, cough, and sore throat.
The culprits are the usual suspects: this year’s strains of influenza, COVID, and RSV. And though flulike-illness levels have been above baseline nationally for several consecutive weeks, the CDC warns that we still haven’t hit the peak.
…
As always, seniors remain the most at-risk demographic for severe outcomes from respiratory illnesses, which is why the low vaccination rates for that group remain troubling.
Beyond vaccination, for everyone, the best way to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses like the flu and RSV is regular handwashing; avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth; and staying home if you get sick. High-filtration face masks still work great, too, and not just for avoiding COVID.
But noone is forcing them to use ER as primary care.
You are you so fervently spreading that misinformation?
Obama passed a bill to get EMERGENCY care to those who need it and people like you have exploited that legislation to scam hospitals.
15 dollars a month gets you insurance.
If you didn’t bother to go through the process, you can still see a doctor for 200 dollars, which can be held as debt and paid back in however small installments you need. You do need to pay it though.
There is literally no reason for an uninsured person to run up a 2000 at the ER for primary care. Absolutely no reason.
You are telling people in a bad place to do the thing that will make their situation, and all of our situation, worse to the maximum degree.
As I said previously, the process needed to get insurance under these programs can be too complicated for individuals with low literacy or for whom English is a second language, limiting their access to these resources. And believe it or not, there are individuals for whom $15 a month is still not affordable for something they may or may not use that month, like medical insurance.
So those people need to put in effort, learn, and be functional members of society.
Bullshit that you can’t pay 15 dollars a month and 15 dollars to your medical debt a month.
If you can’t do that, you need to figure your shit out… until we implement single payer Healthcare. Which we should.