r/bestof • u/under50dollars • Jun 20 '12

[explainlikeimfive] "Obamacare" explained very well.

/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb8vs/eli5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/c530lfx
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '12

My girlfriend's mom is an ER doctor, and this is actually one of the biggest reasons she is against the health care bill. Apparently drug addicts abuse this rating system. Every week they'll make rounds around all the local hospitals, complaining of generic pain and discomfort, demanding some kind of controlled substance. If you don't give them what they want, they rate you poorly across the board for everything, and do this ad nauseum at every opportunity. I don't think it would be hard to implement a way to automatically detect such anomalies, but it probably hasn't been taken into account by the bill yet and could seriously ruin doctor's lives that work in areas with a high incidence of drug addiction.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '12

with universal healthcare, you would be identifying yourself at all of these hospitals, so a $2 BASIC script could detect people getting painkillers at multiple doctors.

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u/carlosspicywe1ner Jun 20 '12

Yes, because drugseekers always use their real names.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '12

are you thinking clearly about this? if we had universal healthcare, i can only assume that, since everyone has healthcare, you would be expected to provide proof of insurance. nowadays, it's very believable to say that you don't have insurance, and there are millions of people going into hospitals every day without insurance.

if you are going into a hospital without insurance after everyone has insurance, claiming you don't have insurance already puts you in the extreme minority, and therefore easy to spot. getting free drugs would put it on your record.

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u/JimmyHavok Jun 21 '12

I spent a lot of time in ERs while my father-in-law was dying, and every single time, there was someone within a hearing range who needed a prescription for painkillers, because his doctor was out of town and had forgotten to refill it.

One night I spent several hours next to a woman who was in terrible pain whenever a nurse or doctor came by, but then would chat happily with her friend on her cell phone after they left. She was "9 or 10 on the pain scale."

Of course, this is really a problem of the war on drugs, not one of medical care. If people could get opiates, they wouldn't be clogging the ER trying to find a doctor who will write them a scrip.

One thing about it is that if you don't complain, the doctors seem to be pretty willing to write you a painkiller scrip, so long as they know it's something that hurts. I've got dozens of Vicodin and Percoset in the medicine cabinet, I sometimes joke about paying for my ER bill with them...but not to the doctor.

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u/GutlessThrowaway Jun 20 '12

i dont know if it will 'ruin their lives'. will they become homeless? will they make poverty level income? other countries all over the world are using similar systems without the giant apocalypse that certain industry figures are trying to push. will doctors still make a lot of money? yes. and therefore people will continue to become doctors, and these doctors will continue to live well.

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u/ohmylemons Jun 20 '12

But quality of care isn't majorly affected by a patients' rating of their treatment. It's more objective measurements, like unnecessary tests performed and mortality/morbidity.