Please summarize Not long ago, a young Ohio woman named Trina Bachtel, who was having health
problems while pregnant, tried to get help at a local clinic.
Unfortunately, she had previously sought care at the same clinic while uninsured and
had a large unpaid balance. The clinic wouldn't see her again unless she paid $100
per visit which she didn't have.
Eventually, she sought care at a hospital 30 miles away. By then, however, it was too late. Both she and the baby died. You may think that this was an extreme
case, but stories like this are common in America.
Back in 2006, The Wall Street Journal told another such story: that of a young woman
named Monique White, who failed to get regular care for lupus because she lacked
insurance. Then, one night, "as skin lesions spread over her body and her stomach swelled, she couldn't sleep." The Journal's report goes on: "Mama, please help me! Please take me to the
E. R.,' she howled, according to her mother, Gail Deal. "O. K., let's go," Mrs. Deal recalls
saying. "No, I can't," the daughter replied. "I don't have insurance."
She was rushed to the hospital the next day after suffering a seizure and the hospital
spared no expense on her treatment. But it all came too late; she was dead a few
months later. How can such things happen? "I mean,
people have access to health care in America," President Bush once declared. "After all, you just go to an emergency room." Not quite. First of all, visits to the emergency room are no substitute for regular care, which
can identify and treat health problems before they get acute. And more than 40 percent of uninsured adults have no
regular source of care.