GOP lawmaker delaying treatment for son's broken arm

[Daerio]

I'm not getting your point here. A broken fucking arm is a significantly more serious injury than a sprain. That isn't up for debate.

Your personal opinion on pain threshholds is irrelevant. Cost of healthcare is fucking irrelevant.

Sitting on a kid's broken arm is dereliction of duty. Assuming the state of an injury when you are, in fact, not a doctor is dereliction of duty. Simple and plain.

One requires medical attention, the other does not. A normal parent doesn't know which is which, and chances are if a bone isn't sticking out waiting until the next day isn't going to make a big difference.

From the article:

The father of five offered a personal example of how this shift might play out. He says his youngest son fell and injured his arm. Not sure if it was sprained or broken, he and his wife decided to wait until the next morning to take the 10-year-old to the doctor's office, instead of going to the emergency room that night.

It's literally the exact same story as my personal experience, and you're asking what the relevance is because one turned out to be broken and one turned out to be sprained. Derp.

[Daefish]

this is the real issue, yet everyone is obsessed with punishing the father. weird, eh?

The torches and pitchforks are raised high against this strawman.

[Daerio]

The torches and pitchforks are raised high against this strawman.

Perhaps big brother would do a better job taking care of his 5 kids because he has concerns over health care costs. They'd probably fare a lot better in foster care.

[prwraith]

It's a broken arm, unless you're impacting bloodflow fixing it tomorrow vs today isn't going to cause permanent damage.

[Listrata]

Perhaps big brother would do a better job taking care of his 5 kids because he has concerns over health care costs. They'd probably fare a lot better in foster care.

I would have done the same as he did and I'm a parent of three. Kids get hurt all the time. Some things they get over. Broken arm doesn't mean it was hanging by the skin. A fracture is usually what happens and it's hard to tell if your kid is just whinning. Every kid is different and they did the right thing by monitoring his pain levels and took him in. If anything the kid learned what pain feels like and can communicate better about his level of injury.

[Daedius]

Father of the year...

[twiddler]

I broke both my arms when I was younger while working abroad in Norway got picked up in an ambulance and driven to the Er, instantly placed my bones in the correct positions, got a cast and some pills and was sent to my apartment with a note saying get well soon from a nurse. Don't even want to imagine if it had happened in the land of the "free"

Edit. Of course paid 0 dollars out of pocket

You guys are very lucky then. My generation is mostly comprised of first generation Asian Americans and we grew up "waiting until Monday" for any illness or injury because reporting to the ER would cost us such much. My uncle was finally realizing a surplus in his company with his last son just recently graduating from high school, youngest daughter at a regional university, and two older children in Iraq when instead of going to the hospital, he called my mom and asked what medicine he should take for a headache. He was dead when my mom got there, only to find out that ER got there 40 minutes after the call, and still billed a dead man.

Of course, Obamacare is for lazy people.

[Daerio]

You guys are very lucky then. My generation is mostly comprised of first generation Asian Americans and we grew up "waiting until Monday" for any illness or injury because reporting to the ER would cost us such much. My uncle was finally realizing a surplus in his company with his last son just recently graduating from high school, youngest daughter at a regional university, and two older children in Iraq when instead of going to the hospital, he called my mom and asked what medicine he should take for a headache. He was dead when my mom got there, only to find out that ER got there 40 minutes after the call, and still billed a dead man.

Of course, Obamacare is for lazy people.

Obamacare has done more to turn hospitals into in & out fast food style medication dispensaries than anything that came before it. Quality of care is legitimately dropping like a rock while costs skyrocket and overall revenue and profit for all industries involved climbs.

And still, no one is protected from losing all they have and their livelihood from a doctor visit.

[Deleted]

I pay ridiculously high taxes, but I'm really glad this scenario is unthinkable here. I broke my arm 1 time when I was young and my fingers a few times. For each occasion my dad drove me to the ER immediately, they give you a cast/splint and you're sent home.
Out-of-pocket cost? Close to 0.

Even if 1 day doesn't potentially make a massive difference in terms of complications, delaying a hospital visit for one of your kids when they are in pain because of financial concerns is incredibly sad in our rich Western society.

[Machismo]

Most broken limbs are not dire emergencies, so there's no real need to rush them to an emergency room. This is a lot of drama about basically nothing. I have broken limbs numerous times, and have waited to go to the doctor on more than one occasion. Now, the reasoning shouldn't be about cost (unless the person really cannot afford it), it should be about assessing risk and triage.

[Deleted]

Most broken limbs are not dire emergencies, so there's no real need to rush them to an emergency room. This is a lot of drama about basically nothing. I have broken limbs numerous times, and have waited to go to the doctor on more than one occasion. Now, the reasoning shouldn't be about cost (unless the person really cannot afford it), it should be about assessing risk and triage.

Your opinion will change once you get kids. Then it's not about assessing risk and triage like an emotionless douchebag, but more about caring for those who depend on you.

Medically, you still want to act swiftly to avoid joint complications, blood vessel damage and/or nerve damage. Since bones, as living material, immediately start healing. When they are not set properly you run a risk you can easily avoid by taking care of the injury straight away.

[Scathbais]

To keep the story short.


Now to me this seems like a gross negligence by a parent and he should be investigated by child services to see if he does something that's harmful to his children. Delaying treatment like this can cause further damage to a person and this guy, who probably is rich enough, waits a day because he wanted to save a penny.

I find it quite humorous that a democrat can claim "gross negligence" on anyone with a straight face after what the FBI and Justice Department let Hillary get away with.

Yes we have moral outrage over nothing because its the GOP.

[Deleted]

I find it quite humorous that a democrat can claim "gross negligence" on anyone with a straight face after what the FBI and Justice Department let Hillary get away with.

Yes we have moral outrage over nothing because its the GOP.

What? That doesn't make any sense at all. It's like claiming Germans shouldn't have any opinion on racial conflicts at all because of what happened in the 1940s.

Or because your cousin is a rapist, you should get a restraining order when it comes to approaching women.

[Scathbais]

I would have done the same as he did and I'm a parent of three. Kids get hurt all the time. Some things they get over. Broken arm doesn't mean it was hanging by the skin. A fracture is usually what happens and it's hard to tell if your kid is just whinning. Every kid is different and they did the right thing by monitoring his pain levels and took him in. If anything the kid learned what pain feels like and can communicate better about his level of injury.

^And this. As a parent of 2 grown kids, we've had plenty of bumps and bruises that turned out to be nothing and other times they turned out to be broken bones. You just can't always tell.

[Jotaux]

It depends how broken it is. When I broke my arm skiing I didn't even know. It was going to be a 2 hour wait at emergency and I figured I just pulled a muscle or something. When it hurt still the next day I went to the walk in clinic and then went for x rays. I was shocked when they told me it was broken.

[Daerio]

Your opinion will change once you get kids. Then it's not about assessing risk and triage like an emotionless douchebag, but more about caring for those who depend on you.

I have two sons and their mother regularly takes them to the ER when they get hurt doing dumb shit. Kids getting hurt is part of growing up and learning how to not do dumb shit all the time.

20 years ago when I was growing up the ER wasn't this popular; I went to the doctor a handful of times for check ups and shots and once when I thought my arm was broken after waiting until the next day. Now everyone goes to the ER for a flu or twisted ankle and it costs 3,000$ to see a doctor for 2 minutes but they never pay it so everything is totally fucked.

[Hiricine]

Waiting overnight for non-emergency room services to open is not an unreasonable way to look at a broken arm. Not only will it not heal incorrectly in that period of time, assuming it is broken they will literally send you to follow up with an orthopedic doctor that will NOT see you in the emergency room.

The GOP lawmaker is an example of what everyone should do who is cost savvy. A broken arm will not kill you, and the cost difference is so massive in general that its prudent so long as you don't have to wait for days to get seen at an immediate care center or get outpatient xrays to avoid an Emergency Room visit.

Your willingness to throw cost out the window and rush to the most expensive care possible is NOT a measure of how much you care for someone, if anything, it is the opposite, as an adult who wants the best for their child realizes that the resources they are spending on something could be better spent on something else in that child's life.

[Scathbais]

What? That doesn't make any sense at all. It's like claiming Germans shouldn't have any opinion on racial conflicts at all because of what happened in the 1940s.

No just find it amusing that a democrat is trying to use gross negligence and investigate in a sentence about a GOP member, but would probably never consider using those words in a sentence to describe Hillary.

Kid gets broken bone, find out about it next day, not gross negligence. Secretary of State puts state secrets on unprotected computers, gross negligence. Please stop hyperventilating about Nazi Germany. I am comparing bashing a GOP because he waited a day to check out a non-life threatening injury vs democrat ignoring real gross negligence.

[Daerio]

If we had some sort of cost voucher system where a certain amount of costs were covered per year by the government like what Trump has hinted at wanting, you just spent what was likely the entire year's subsidy on one unnecessary ER visit rather than waiting until the next day.

[Hiricine]

"Hurting" an arm is VERY different from "Breaking" an arm.

Depends on the nature of the fracture. There are plenty of fractures which heal relatively easy and plenty of soft tissue injuries which take a long time to recover from.