Talk About a Stupid Headline

Here is a headline of a story currently on Yahoo!'s homepage.

911 no help as woman dies on emergency room floor

Can anyone else see a problem with this scenario?

Okay, so what is 911 for? Isn't it for emergencies in order to get faster medical or fire or police protection? So what is the problem in this scenario? Oh yeah, she was already AT the dang hospital. Now, having read the whole story, turns out she was in an inner-city hospital that was incompetent and needed to be transferred to another hospital. But wait a minute! This story isn't about how crappy the one hospital was; nope, it is a plea for caring about this woman.

So, yeah, this story is crap. And, it is a blatant attempt to profit off this woman for some political purpose. Thus, in order to not do that, I am not going to tell you to look into the management of the incompetent hospital (and I won't bet you $10 that it is government run). No, I won't ask you if she would be dead now if hospitals were not heavily influenced or run by government.

You see, I have integrity and I CARE about this woman. Oh wait, I am not liberal? Whoops, can't say that then can I?

Okay, imagine if this lady had gone to a hospital where the place had to make a profit, where insurance and Medicare were dirty words. Imagine that hospital without the government mandate that every fool that walks through the door gets treated, even if they can't pay. Now, would she have died? I don't think so, but then again, I don't know the full story. But you know what I do know? Even though there is a law that every schmuck that comes in gets treated, she didn't. Why? Why did the law not work? That is my question. If the law is oh-so-powerful and we need it badly, what went wrong? Could it be that government mandates caused some caring doctor to focus on filling out paperwork instead of treating the sick? Could it be that a doctor were too busy dealing with some kid with sniffles just because "eh, insurance covers it" so the parent brought the kid into the emergency room? Could it be that the lobby was so full of people like that sniffles kid, again there only because insurance covers it, that she was not noticed? Or, could it be that this hospital, in its wonderful mission of helping everybody, even those that can't pay, just didn't have enough money to make sure enough doctors were available when this woman came in?

No, it couldn't be one of those scenarios right? Right?