The LA Times reports that uninsured adults in Los Angeles are waiting more than a year for gallbladder and hernia surgeries. Indeed, the Harbor-UCLA medical center just told the county's clinics to simply stop referring non-emergency gallstone, hernia, orthopedic, or neurosurgery patients till the hospital worked through its year-long backlog.
The clinics, predictably, are responding by sending these patients to emergency rooms, further overwhelming ERs with patients in terrible pain, but not technically suffering from an emergency. Yet. So they're being turned away, though no doubt going into debt or having their wages garnished as they attempt to pay off the bills. Meanwhile, In the absence of the necessary surgeries, we're holding these folks together with belts and trusses -- literally:
Hernias occur when part of an internal organ protrudes into muscle, often after a person strains to move a heavy object. A supportive belt or truss can help hold in the organ, but the belt can be painful and interfere with work, especially in jobs that involve manual labor or standing all day.
Organ poking out and pressing on a muscle? Here's a girdle!
Say it with me, kids: In this country, we ration by income.
