President Obama promises to overhaul the health-care system. One
area that needs attention is emergency care. Go to most any
emergency room and you will be treated -- even if you don't have
money and even if it's not an emergency. That's a problem for
doctors as well as for patients with real emergencies. When Sam
was in a Chicago emergency room, he agreed to participate in a
study about the effects of homelessness on the healthcare
system. "I said I only had my truck and that was it," Sam said.
He was one of 400 participants studied by Doctors Laura Sadowski
and Romina Kee Three and a half million people in the United
States are homeless. Many have common conditions like diabetes,
high blood pressure, and heart disease. But with little access
to regular health care, they often are treated in emergency
rooms. In the study, some of the participants were given housing
and met regularly with case workers. That intervention led to 24
percent fewer trips to the emergency room than the participants
who remained hom