Wait for the autopsy results?

The whole story seems weird to me. That said, an ER in the Bronx?

The hospital near me, and the one I prefer (suburban private non-profit), does not have many people using the ER for non emergency primary care. Go into the ER at the city hospital or the for profit in the city and that is not the case.

We need more urgent care clinics open 6 am until Midnight to triage emergency primary care: bad cold or flu, severe headache, minor traumas like a few sutures to a minor laceration.

From the urgent care clinics they could refer patients with real ER needs.

The healthcare delivery system in the USA is fucked up for a lot of reasons. Obamacare has nothing to do with that. The jury is out in my mind if more people will see doctors in their offices and have chronic illness treated better but as for real trauma or urgent care that category will change little.

You don't treat breaking a bone or needing sutures for a laceration (stitches) at your primary care doctor's appointment that you may wait a week or 10 days for. The automated phone answering system at some of my doctors' offices starts with ''If this is an emergency call 911 or visit your nearest hospital ER room for immediate care'' -- what they don't say is that it will take us a week or two to see you ... This just exacerbates the problem increasing ER usage -- many people will not wait a week for some help with a severe cold or flu.

A network of urgent care clinics would lower costs, increase efficiencies and improve patient outcomes.

We have urgent care clinics around here and I used one a few years ago when I cut myself and needed a few stitches. The bill was $450 with a head X-ray the injury was to my scalp. If I had gone to the ER I would have waited some and been charged $1,000+ for the same services -- they would have done a CAT scan and ran the bill up (possible minor concussion).

Urgent care needs of the uninsured and the illegal aliens could be handled in a less costly manner at area (neighborhood) urgent care clinics. The problem is finding qualified staff.

Urgent care clinics should allow physicians to work off their education loans at these clinics. 5 years of on-the-job-supervised-experience -- public service work credits for loans applied to their salaries. Even go as far as recruiting and allowing qualified foreign physicians and medical workers to come to America practice their profession with a temporary competency certificate pending full licensure . The problem is the vested interests that do not want the competition.

And that is why the money spent and the outcomes of healthcare in the USA is on the low-end of the developed world charts -- we spend money needlessly.

I am not happy about paying for my healthcare insurance and not getting immediate service either. However, that is just the way it is here.

We could lighten the burden by eliminating Medicare and refusing to provide emergency medical service to the uninsured.

The majority of Medicaid recipients and uninsured people are not driving new autos and living in nice suburban homes -- they are not in that predicament by choice. Many of them lead a shit life so not to extend that life unnecessarily would be right by that logic ...

There are a lot of ne'er-do-wells in society many do serve a useful function then a lot would be better off soylent green? When I say this I think back to some of the construction laborers that worked for me years ago -- bids were depressed by the market and there was no profit for benefits. I paid them $10 - $12 /hr 20 years ago and they were able to pay their rent and get drunk or stoned. Tough life but many of those guys are the uninsured. People who work but barely make it ... But I didn't have to push the wheelbarrow so they were useful members of society to me.