Case In Point
Feb 4th, 2008 at 7:56 am by Susie
See, we can’t have universal healthcare because then we’d all be victims of a heartless bureacracy! (h/t Lutton):
A Staten Island woman being rushed from her doctor’s office to the hospital after a heart attack was hounded for a $5 insurance co-pay while lying on a gurney and breathing through tubes.
Barbara Antonelli, 76, said she was shocked after a penny-pinching receptionist from Staten Island Physician Practice ran to her as she was being carried to the ambulance.
“Pardon my diction - it was a lousy $5,” said Antonelli, of Dongan Hills, who claimed she had to rustle through her purse for the cash before the ambulance would speed off.
“You can’t even get a book of stamps for that price. I was outraged. It was the most heartless, unthinkable thing to do. They were putting money on top of a person’s life.”
I AM IN NO WAY DEFENDING THE OFFICE PERSONNEL, WHAT THEY DID IS NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR ANY REASON, but I believe there is a federal rule (regarding medicare and supplemental insurance) that says if you do not collect the $5 fee, at time of service or you can get into a far bit of trouble with medicare, and that is what I suspect was their motive. The fact that they put the concerns of the office ahead of the wellbeing of patient happens all the time, and universal healthcare is the only way out of this mess.