Children's Hospital waives medical costs for

[seventeen]

shooting victims

www.9news.com/news/local/article/279245/635/Childrens-Hospital-waives-medical-costs-for-shooting-victims

(word is 2 other hospitals will follow suit)

DENVER - Uninsured patients from the Aurora shooting who are being treated at Children's Hospital Colorado will not have to pay for their medical care, the hospital announced Wednesday.

Copays will be waived for insured patients.

The hospital said charity programs and other donations directed to the hospital will be used to cover the costs.

Meanwhile, seventeen patients remain at five local hospitals as of Wednesday.

Six people are in critical condition, meaning their vital signs are still unstable. Eleven patients are in good or fair condition.

Of those in critical condition, five are at University of Colorado Hospital and one is at the Medical Center of Aurora. The patient at the Medical Center of Aurora is in the intensive care unit.

University Hospital released one patient Wednesday.

(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

[cookiemdough]

Are the donated funds ones that were specifically designated to go to the victims or just general donations to the hospital?

[lilmgirl]

Wow is right.

[Michelle]

Jul 25, 2012 18:54:21 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

Are the donated funds ones that were specifically designated to go to the victims or just general donations to the hospital?

Good question. Most hospitals have a charity care discretionary fund and perhaps they felt this was a good cause to award 100% charity care.

[basilosaurus]

Children's is part of the university (public), so I'm going to guess they have a few sources of funding.

Aurora med is part of health one. So is Swedish, although I doubt any of the victims are there. So far no word on whether they'll be treated for free, right?

[copzgirl1171]

This is pretty darn cool.

[Deleted]

the fact that you can be an innocent bystander to a shooting, end up in the hospital and have to pay for your medical care, especially as a child, is mind boggling to me.

no one in the 'best' country in the world should have to worry about medical costs, period.

but especially not after something like this.

[soontobeka]

Jul 25, 2012 20:07:54 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

the fact that you can be an innocent bystander to a shooting, end up in the hospital and have to pay for your medical care, especially as a child, is mind boggling to me.

no one in the 'best' country in the world should have to worry about medical costs, period.

but especially not after something like this.

Agreed. There was an article the other day that one of the victims is uninsured and that his medical costs could top $2 million. He is the victim whose wife gave birth early this week.

[pixy0stix]

I'm so incredibly moved by this.

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2012 20:13:30 GMT -5 soontobeka said:

Jul 25, 2012 20:07:54 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

the fact that you can be an innocent bystander to a shooting, end up in the hospital and have to pay for your medical care, especially as a child, is mind boggling to me.

no one in the 'best' country in the world should have to worry about medical costs, period.

but especially not after something like this.

Agreed. There was an article the other day that one of the victims is uninsured and that his medical costs could top $2 million. He is the victim whose wife gave birth early this week.

His wife must be going through a lot! Husband injured, new baby....holy cow.

How does one's costs end up at $2 million? This might not be thread for that question, though.

[heyjude]

Jul 25, 2012 20:07:54 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

the fact that you can be an innocent bystander to a shooting, end up in the hospital and have to pay for your medical care, especially as a child, is mind boggling to me.

no one in the 'best' country in the world should have to worry about medical costs, period.

but especially not after something like this.

I totally agree.

[penguingrrl]

Jul 25, 2012 20:44:57 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

Jul 25, 2012 20:13:30 GMT -5 soontobeka said:

Agreed. There was an article the other day that one of the victims is uninsured and that his medical costs could top $2 million. He is the victim whose wife gave birth early this week.

His wife must be going through a lot! Husband injured, new baby....holy cow.

How does one's costs end up at $2 million? This might not be thread for that question, though.

I agree with you and depending on his injuries I could easily see costs reaching $2M. I was hospitalized in the CCU in May due to a breathing problem. I was in the hospital for only one night. The hospital bill was $28,000. Then each doctor I saw bills separately. So a separate bill for the three ER docs, the 2 cardiothorasic surgeons who consulted with me (luckily I didn't need surgery), the pulmonologist was also a separate bill. They had a gastroenterologist meet with me and that was another bill. Plus the ambulance bill was several hundred. DH and I decided not to calculate the total cost before insurance kicked in. We will owe several thousand out of pocket after we're done fighting for insurance to cover what they're supposed to; we don't have a total yet, but so far we know of $2,500 we have to cover and are still working with insurance because several docs we saw were out of network so they're trying to refuse charges (by the one, one of the out of network was the ER doc... because the first question as you're being wheeled in by ambulance should need to be whether the doc accepts your insurance). I could easily see serious gunshot wound injuries putting someone at $2M.

And I completely agree with you that it's absurd what citizens here have to worry about when they get sick/injured/etc.

And I'm so glad the hospitals are doing this. Those poor people have been through enough!

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2012 20:07:54 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

the fact that you can be an innocent bystander to a shooting, end up in the hospital and have to pay for your medical care, especially as a child, is mind boggling to me.

no one in the 'best' country in the world should have to worry about medical costs, period.

but especially not after something like this.

So much This. I was teary reading about this earlier today and thought "that is how it should be."

Children's has a few donation drives per year. DH and I have money taken out of our account each month donated to them. This makes me that much happier to do so.

[druidp]

HealthONE is following suit.

[basilosaurus]

What are the other 3 hospitals? Just curious because I probably know nurses at most of the hospitals in the area.

[josieposy]

That is way cool!

I don't doubt for a second that the $2 million estimate is accurate for the one victim. My complications-a-plenty pregnancy, two hospital stays, plus NICU costs for twins for 6 weeks reached well over $0.5 million total with no bullet holes or drug-induced comas involved.

[druidp]

Jul 25, 2012 21:57:11 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

What are the other 3 hospitals? Just curious because I probably know nurses at most of the hospitals in the area.

University of Colorado Hospital
Childrens Hospital Colorado
Swedish Medical Center
Medical Center of Aurora

[onomatopoeia]

I think this is fabulous.

This might be flammable, but the pessimist/cynical side of me is angry that innocent victims of drunk drivers, bystanders shot in drive-by shootings, people with cancer, etc, whose stories aren't as public, are still saddled with thousands of dollars of debt for medical costs that are in no way, shape or form their fault. I don't think the victims of the mass shooting where Gabrielle Giffords was shot got their medical bills paid for, and I remember wondering as I watched the coverage of her treatment if any of the other injured victims could afford the top-notch care that she had, and how it wasn't fair. These people in Aurora were really unlucky they were in the wrong place in the wrong time, but are really lucky in this regard. I wish everyone could have this.

[ttt]

Jul 26, 2012 8:10:52 GMT -5 onomatopoeia said:

I think this is fabulous.

This might be flammable, but the pessimist/cynical side of me is angry that innocent victims of drunk drivers, bystanders shot in drive-by shootings, people with cancer, etc, whose stories aren't as public, are still saddled with thousands of dollars of debt for medical costs that are in no way, shape or form their fault. I don't think the victims of the mass shooting where Gabrielle Giffords was shot got their medical bills paid for, and I remember wondering as I watched the coverage of her treatment if any of the other injured victims could afford the top-notch care that she had, and how it wasn't fair. These people in Aurora were really unlucky they were in the wrong place in the wrong time, but are really lucky in this regard. I wish everyone could have this.

This is where I am.

It goes to show you why the idea of "don't have government programs for the needy, charity will take care of everything" is such a bad one. Why are these victims more deserving than the victims of any other of the thousands of shootings or car crashes or cancer or anything else? Because the shooting got lots of media attention? There is something fundamentally wrong with deciding who gets stuck with millions in medical bills and who gets them taken care of charity almost entirely based on the whims of what's popular and most emotionally stirring.

[pixy0stix]

Why does it always have to dissolve into, "but but but... what about THESE people?"

Can't we be happy, for an instant, that these people are being taken care of? FTR, Childrens has a ton of grant programs where children *do* receive medical care far beyond their means without any media attention.

[druidp]

Jul 26, 2012 9:33:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Why does it always have to dissolve into, "but but but... what about THESE people?"

Can't we be happy, for an instant, that these people are being taken care of? FTR, Childrens has a ton of grant programs where children *do* receive medical care far beyond their means without any media attention.

Andplusalso, while healthcare costs are indeed exorbitant and out of control, these entities write off millions each year from charity situations and debt forgiveness based on certain cases.

[ttt]

Jul 26, 2012 11:02:22 GMT -5 mr+ms said:

Jul 26, 2012 9:36:27 GMT -5 druidp said:

Andplusalso, while healthcare costs are indeed exorbitant and out of control, these entities write off millions each year from charity situations and debt forgiveness based on certain cases.

On the one hand, I am happy for the families that don't have to be burdened with the financial aspect of being badly injured but stories like this don't really give me warm fuzzies overall.

There is something really squicky about the whole "charity" and donations aspect of funding extraordinary (or sometimes ordinary!) health care costs. Sick/injured people are at the mercy of some random generosity or luck. It just highlights how fucked up everything is from the inflated costs through the quoted above about writing off these costs instead of having some organized, sensible and humane method to dealing with the issue of huge health care expenses.

Exactly.

And it sends the message that "see, healthcare costs can just be covered by charity if they are too high for people! Its not such a big problem!"