re: 250K Americans die per year from ER misdiagnosis.

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The real problem is cost of healthcare no matter insurance. How many people get misdiagnosed because an MRI, or CT doesn’t get run because of high cost? Im willing to wager that if the costs of scans, X-rays, and labs weren’t astronomical we’d see a respectable decrease in this number.

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Don’t get me wrong, costs in healthcare are astronomical, but that “generally” isn’t a factor in ERs.

Availability of the test itself is more of an issue than cost being a factor.

For example, MRIs are hard to obtain for kids due to how long it takes to run one, acuity of other patients, etc.

And people need to recognize that medicine is not like being a mechanic.

It is triage, figuring out what you can with limited info, all while balancing the fact that you have 40 more in the waiting room.

On top of all of that, those small town ERs are only slightly better than urgent cares.