Friday, January 29, 2010

We are going to save lives! Wait! Who is going to pay for this?

In a world where some people believe money does not equal happiness. I beg to differ in many situations like these. Anyways, the US has stopped all the medical evacuations of critical Haitian victims until the question above is answered. After the Governor of Florida asked the federal government (in a polite way) to "shoulder" some of the cost, all flights have stopped. Thus the states who are willing to help these patients won't be getting anymore people.

"Flordia stands ready to assist our neighbors in Haiti, but we need a plan of action and reimbursement for the care we are providing," Sterling Ivey, a spokesman, said.

Governor Crist of Florida, a Republican, is currently in a primary battle for a Senate seat. In what the article accounts for as "finger-pointing", the Department of Health and Human Services blamed the stop on the military. The spokesman also said that the military decided to stop the flights because hospitals were becoming "unwilling" to take more patients. The question comes down to who is going to pay for this?

Yet Jeanne Eckes-Roper, a health chairwoman of the domestic security task force for South Florida said she had only "requested" that new patients be taken to other places for care. A specific article detail caught my eye. That the Super Bowl is suppose to happen on Feburary 7th there.
The money, if money is ushered, will come from the Disaster Medical System that funds domestic distasters and pays for the hospital bills.

Some patients brought from Haiti were American citizens who were not insured or not eligible. However Haitians can qualify for Medicaid only with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services ' consent.

Major Lowe believes that since medical care is now avaliable in Haiti, the flights are not as needed. Non Profit Organizations are outraged due to the physical state of many of the victims. Major Lowe suggested using private planes but medically equipped planes would be both expensive and limited.

This irritates me. I understand their concern though. We are in a bad position and lacking the money to cover such things. I still appreciate their effort nevertheless. I wonder how this will go with the federal government, will they be willing to fund this attempt to help or dismiss it? What I think will happen is that the government will offer to pay maybe five percent of it but definitely not all for the illusion. Honestly, I don't know where this money is going to come from. What are your thoughts? Do you have any suggestions for these hospitals who want to help?

5 comments:

Franklin Wu said...

Perhaps Bill Gates could help a little..

http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/01/29/davos.bill.gates.donates/index.html

Lily said...

I don't understand, Franklin. o_o I admittedly skimmed your link but the main points I got was that Bill Gates was going to fund vaccinations. How will that help Haiti which needs flights to hospitals right now? I didn't catch anything about him wanting to donate to that cause.

Francis Wang said...

He's saying that, since the Gates Foundation has tons of money and invests in humanitarian programs, they might be willing to provide funding.

Franklin Wu said...

/rings a little bell

FRANCIS GOT IT!

Lily said...

AHA! I see now. Lol. Sorry, I am very slow. ;) I thought Franklin was giving me the article to that.

Well, lets see who is going to appeal to Bill Gates?