CONNECT
Romney: ‘We Don’t Have People Who Die Because They Don’t Have Insurance’
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Thursday 11 October 2012
“Romney’s health care proposal would leave 72 million Americans without health insurance and wouldn’t provide all uninsured Americans with a stable source of insurance.”
Mitt Romney doubled down on his suggestion that uninsured Americans can find the care they need in emergency rooms, telling The Dispatch that people will always receive the treatment they need, and do not die or suffer because they can not pay for care. He pointed to federal law that requires hospitals to admit emergency patients, repeating his advice that patients rely on the most expensive form of care reserved strictly for emergencies. Romney told the Columbus Dispatch:
“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’ ” he said as he offered more hints as to what he would put in place of “Obamacare,” which he has pledged to repeal.
“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”
He pointed out that federal law requires hospitals to treat those without health insurance — although hospital officials frequently say that drives up health-care costs.
Emergency rooms serve as a place of last resort, but 45,000 Americans still die every year because they lack health insurance, or one every 12 minutes. Uninsured adults under age 65 are also at a 40 percent higher death risk. Hospitals may treat patients for emergency medical conditions regardless of legal status or ability to pay, but patients with chronic conditions that don’t require emergency interference are often unable to access needed care.
Romney’s health care proposal would leave 72 million Americans without health insurance and wouldn’t provide all uninsured Americans with a stable source of insurance.
Top Stories
By Ronnie Cummins
20 comments on "Romney: ‘We Don’t Have People Who Die Because They Don’t Have Insurance’"
October 14, 2012 12:13pm
Mitt is either lying or just plain ignorant of the fact that over 45,000 maybe up to 55,000 people per year now die prematurely simply because they don't have insurance. This is true for multiple reasons. You can find the articles and studies at sites like pnhp.org and healthcare-now.org. More links at wndavis.blogspot.com.
October 14, 2012 7:36pm
But see Bill, that is ALRIGHT with Romney, who thinks there are too many poor. He doesn't have to be either stupid, or false in his basic beliefs. He just has to:
1) Know that the poor are a drag on the Rich, and
2) Know that it's okay for Mormons to lie to get their way.
October 14, 2012 11:40am
Read the newspaper or surf the web to become aware of just how many people are turned away from a hospital to be send an emergency room somewhere that will accept Medicare or similar programs and die on their way their.
Hard to understand how some one could be so uniformed.
I know several people with insurance that have treatments postponed or denied that have insurance even though their doctors prescribe it. Good luck when you do not have insurance.
October 11, 2012 7:46pm
Don't worry, the rich are doing just fine. Even if they don't have health insurance, they can still afford proper care. So it's true. No one mittney knows ever died from not having health insurance. But no doubt they still 'use' the ER to scrooge a few bucks away.
October 11, 2012 6:29pm
Have you looked at https://www.pcip.gov/
pre existing condition insurance pool. Part of "Obama care"
October 11, 2012 3:55pm
Do you know who is killing and bankrupting the people who have posted on this page today? True, Republicans, but even more, the Fox News and Talk Radio idiots and the total idiots who listen to them. These idiots will go to the polls and vote for Republicans because of stupid stuff like religion and abortion and the threat of socialism. Then they will go home and concern themselves with the sports pages. These are the very same people who eventually be overcome with ill health or job loss and not be able to get medical treatment, because nobody is immune to misfortune. Right now, they believe what Willard says, they will be taken care of. And there will be pie in the sky when they die.
I understand that Willard has no imagination and cannot identify with ordinary people even for a moment. But I am baffled at the inability of the rest of us to imagine ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors, suddenly unable to afford decent medical care. It is not exactly a new idea; every developed country has some form of universal health care.
October 11, 2012 3:51pm
Complete bullshit. Let me give you an anecdotal example. A friend of mine working full time as a carpenter fell off of a house and broke his hand and wrist in several places. He had no insurance.
He went to the emergency room and declared indigence. So the state paid for his medical bills. However, the emergency room explained that what they did was only a preliminary surgery, setting bones and aligning his wrist. In several weeks, he would need a specialist to do yet another procedure, due to the damage of the fall and how he fell, or lose 30% of the strength and movement in his hand. The state would not pay for that.
So knowing that he didn't have 40K for the procedure, he resigned himself to getting the paper work for disability, since he could not continue to work with a 30% loss of movement and strength in his hand (this is a man who spent his entire working life learning the trade of carpentry).
Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for his parents, his parents stepped in, lower, lower middle class, and paid the 40K--with horrible financial consequences.
The point being that yes, people do suffer because of a lack of health care. In fact, it would have cost the tax payer a lot more than 40K if he did not have the procedure, since he would have been 28 years old and disabled for life. As such, we have an irrational system.
October 11, 2012 1:35pm
Mitt Romney is a condescending, entitled, self-absorbed ass, he lives in the "La-La Land" of the very rich and has no idea of what goes on in the real world of the Middle-Class and Poor, and the Daily fight to just exist.
Romney told the Columbus Dispatch: “We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack,’ ” he said as he offered more hints as to what he would put in place of “Obamacare,” which he has pledged to repeal.
“No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. [I guess he doesn't understand that it is the Local Tax-payers who have to pay for the cost of the very most costly means of getting treatment, or allow the Hospital to go Bankrupt.] We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”
He pointed out that federal law requires hospitals to treat those without health insurance — although hospital officials frequently say that drives up health-care costs.
Just how many Hospitals will he force into Bankruptcy before he wakes up to what he is suggesting is not the answer. That the answer is Mandatory Governmental Health Insurance for every Citizen of the United States subsidized by the Tax-Payers for those who cannot afford it.
Preventative HealthCare is the answer to the majority of the Medical Problems in the United States of America. The Cost of which shall be negotiated and controlled by the Federal Government. The HealthCare Insurance Industry will have to compete with Medicare for the coverage of the Individuals.
October 11, 2012 12:52pm
He's an idiot. They are called emergency rooms for a reason, they are not for health care and not all hospitals have to accept uninsured people, just public hospitals. This guy is so out of touch with reality that he really needs to climb back under the rock he came out from under, and stay there.
Does he think people don't die from a disease that could have been detected in it's early stages and treated and hospital emergency rooms don't do that? Yeah right, we have health care, just call an ambulance and have them take me to an emergency room to get a check up.
October 14, 2012 8:02pm
"He's an idiot. They are called emergency rooms for a reason,"
...which is why his comment cost him the vote of every health worker in the industry (I am NOT including the Health-INSURANCE workers, who are NOT Health workers.).
October 11, 2012 12:03pm
Romney must be talking about his rich friends, all of whom have health insurance. Or he must be talking about Canada where NO ONE dies because of a lack of health insurance or where EVERYONE is covered for ALL ailments.
October 11, 2012 11:54am
I have seen people that HAVE insurance, much less those without any, suffer from lack of care. I saw an elderly man in Louisiana trying to refill his prescriptions. He walked into the office (I was sitting in the waiting room full of mounted animals, including a full-sized giraffe in one corner) and he asked the receptionist/nurse if the doctor could please write him refills for his prescriptions. She looked at him, typed something into her computer and then said, do you have insurance? He said, yes, ma'am, I have Medicaid. She said, we don't accept Medicaid-go try another Dr., there's one a few streets over. The elderly man said--excuse me (she had already started to walk away from the counter), but I tried them and they won't accept Medicaid either. She said, well, we don't so go try someone else and she walked away. The man, holding his bag of empty pill bottles, looked a bit lost. He eventually sat down in a chair for a few minutes and then walked back out the door. Unbelievable. This should be absolutely unacceptable. Mitt Romney is a condescending, entitled, self-absorbed ass. He could care less about the average person's struggles to just survive from day to day. For that poor man in Louisiana and everyone else that has no health insurance or rationed care, I hope Obama wins re-election and progressive Dems take control of the House. I am terrified of what will happen otherwise.
October 11, 2012 11:12am
My son has type 1 , insulin dependent diabetes ( this is the kind where the pancreas fails to make insulin, *not* the type associated with diet/weight/exercise). His insulin alone is over 300 dollars a month...just to stay alive. That is not counting the cost of syringes, blood test strips, of which several are used each day .
My employer dropped us all to part time and soon we will have no insurance benefits. I will most likely lose my home as I am using up my savings paying for insulin.
These GOP creeps that now head their party are , in my opinion, psychopaths. How else does one explain their utter lack of concern for the rest of humanity, their ability to just straight out lie, without blinking, without the slightest hint of a conscience?
The anger, fear and despair in the US is palpable. These goons are using the public's angst to turn people on each other. They claim to believe in God and the Christ figure; clearly , by their own actions, they do not.
October 11, 2012 11:21am
and....private insurance companies refuse to cover my son stating he has a "pre-existing condition" or quote us plans with premiums that are over 500 dollars a month...and do not cover insulin! So, a minimum of 800 dollars ( actually more like 1,000 due to the syringes and test strips) a month JUST TO STAY ALIVE. And these devils claim minimum wage does not need to be raised? That neither employers nor the government should be required to provide health care, that people should pay for it on their own....just how does one do that if they were not born into a wealthy family or marry into wealth??
October 11, 2012 10:54am
If the bills for emergency room care are paid by charity, the means by the public. If they are paid by the hospital, the costs get passe along to the public. If the government pays them, that's also the people. So let's cut out the crap, provide preventative care for all, eliminate the costs associated with emergency room care and insurance company profits, and have Medicare for all!
October 11, 2012 10:46am
IS HE THAT BIG A FOOL ???
MR. ROMNEY sir, can you explain why the MEDICARE age requuirement was raised to 65 ??? FROM 62???
sir, Social Security has been Raised from 65 - - to 66.....so-far
W H Y ......
...by not giving it's annual accounting to the people it is said that social security at that time saved 8 million dollars ( one year costs??)
Extending Foreign Aid to AFGHANISTAN.....ONE DECADE - - 2014 TO 2024 COSTS ?????
WE DO NOT HAVE INSURANCE.......DEAF......DUMB.....STUPID......WE ARE NOT.......ARE YOU???
October 11, 2012 11:51am
William B, yes Romney is that big of a fool. Completely out of touch with anyone who is not part of the 1%.
October 11, 2012 10:36am
I didn't know Romney had visited Cuba where "people will always receive the treatment they need, and do not die or suffer because they can not pay for care."
Here in USAmerica, the home of the failed experiment in for-profit corporate sick care, there is DEFINITELY unequal and inadequate provision of Health Care.
Unlike the civilized world, here in USAmerica Health Care is subservient to Billings and Profits and Shareholder Equity...
October 11, 2012 9:46am
Hey, #$$hat, I know, or I should say knew at least two people who have died because they didn't have insurance. How is it that one guy can have known two uninsured dead people, yet, you say nobody dies because they don't have insurance? LIAR! If you're perpetuating that kind of system, you're a murderer, as well.
October 11, 2012 10:59am
I do believe that Chet had his tongue firmly in his cheek - he was being sarcastic.