Bates on Nightline & TWITTER EVENT & Bates and "one income"

[gilora]

I think you're still expected to pay for ER treatment, but whether the hospital collects much is another issue. A family with no insurance, little money and a history of not paying hospital bills in full still cannot be turned away (nor should they be). I'm just mentioning Gill's hyprocricy at supposedly not taking government assistance.

[Kelya]

I went to the ER yesterday for extreme pain (still a loopy from the meds) and it cost me 100 dollars just to get in the door with my insurance. ER care is NOT cheap, and using it from primary care fucks up the system for the rest of us.

I miss my old pediatrician, they had someone available every day from their practice, so even if you had something scary or awful that was almost ER worthy, you could call them and get a referral or see them and get help for a lot cheaper. Something like that could be great for the Bates or any other family, since kids always seem to get sick at 3 am on a Sunday! But no, getting appropriate care would mandate thinking ahead and thinking of others.

The fundie stance on insurance is really the biggest thing that demonstrates their lack of compassion for others, lack of understanding of the world, and lack of real care about societal problems.

[annalena]

Plus they deliberately don't have insurance, so they "take advantage" of other taxpayers every time they use the ER for primary care, get rushed there during a difficult delivery or have their baby in the ICU for 3 weeks and can't pay the bill in full.

This. How can you even say you don't want to be a burgden on tohers, when obviously you are taking advantage of others?

[lilwriter85]

Okay, somehow I'm a horrible person because I'm on food stamps for a short time due to a bad economy (that I am not responsible for) and difficulty finding work (I started a temp job this week, and it's going well).

However, I do not qualify for child tax deductions, and being childfree, I'm also not getting child tax credits like the Bates. You just know they are taking advantage of those things. Most likely the Bates are getting more out of the system than paying into it. Unlike Kelly, I have worked outside the home and have paid taxes non-stop since I was a teen-ager. Yet, I'm the freeloading "welfare queen?"

Plus, there are the load of donations and charity just handed to the Bates. Some say, unlike taxes, these are "freely" given. But are they? How much pressure is there in the fundie community to give stuff to super-sized families? What about people who fall on hard times but have smaller families? What about people without children? What about empy nesters? Do they get donations and charity? I rarely hear about it. But the Bates, Duggars, the Jeubs, Kelly Crawford, et al, always seem to being getting stuff just handed to them all the time! What gives?

Also, where is the Bates family acts of charity? Do they donate to struggling families? Do they do any volunteer work? Or like so many of the fundies we discuss here, is charity all about receiving and not about giving?

Gil and Kelly have gone a mission trip, but I think the Duggars financed that. I haven't heard or read about the Bateses doing charity work. I haven't looked through the blog in awhile. They probably do volunteer work at Christian organizations.

Based on what Gil and Kelly have said about their finances and the fact that Lawson is often buying groceries or lending money to his family, I doubt the Bateses are donating to other struggling families. Maybe Lawson donates money. I doubt Gil would ever personally donate to others. I think the Bateses are probably take but not give family.

ld

[SunnyAndrsn]

A quick read upthread indicates that at least one of their child was born premature and spent time in the NICU. It makes me wonder if the Bates, true to their no-debt philosophy, are still paying for the stay. If they have no health insurance, and void medicaid or other types of "gov't handout", how do they handle the high cost of a hospital say? A day in the NICU can run in the thousands (easily). The Bates never answer if they just pay in installments in cash, or work with the hospital for deep discounts or what.

Around the hospitals here, we get a lot of Amish patients They typically pay through a community pot...like their own insurance policy. However, they also avoid the insurance and gov't aid thing. The Bates do not belong to any insurance tithing group as far as I can see. It makes me fearful how the Bates usually handle the ER bills and the hospital stays for birth.

Fact is, when Gil says he takes his kids to the ER because they don't deny anyone service instead of accepting "government aid" makes me think he is either financially naive or he doesn't pay the bill in full. ER bills are very expensive because ERs are expensive to run. It's one reason we have insurance---so when things like this happens, ERs still get paid.

I actually suspect that the Gil kind of look for ways to reduce their ER bills by declaring themselves indigent. They probably don't think anything of it because the ER "magically" discounts their prices. They probably think it's like negotiating for the price of corn.....if you are good at negotiating then you get a "better" deal----not really, the taxpayers just end up with the rest of the bill. I have yet to hear most fundies who joyfully ignore insurance ever acknowledge this ugly fact. Just because you don't "take" money directly from the gov't doesn't mean you aren't costing money to the taxpayers.

The hospital I work at has a "community care" application. Basically, it's an income based application that can reduce the costs of medical bills for those that qualify. Anyone who comes to the ER and demands to be seen by an ER MD has to be seen. MD is supposed to do at least a medical screening exam. We have MDs who will try to send these pts. to clinic or urgent care during these hours. Typically these MDs are very unliked be these pts. who demand to be seen in the ER, some think its quicker, some think our MDs are dumb and will just pour out the Narcs (Cue Jennifer McKinney)

However, clinic and urgent care have the right to deny treatment if the pt. can't pay and does not have a community care application on file. Basically, the send those pts. right back to us in the ER, where we call the business office and get the community care application brought up.