http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jul/08/reince-priebus/rnc-chair-reince-priebus-thanks-barack-obama-five-/
The Republicans are really hurting if they are resorting to blatant lies like this.
What does 'average E.R. wait' mean?
Actually, there isn’t just one definition. A study published in October 2013 by the
California Health Care Foundation offered three different measurements.
The one Priebus references is "patient arrival to being admitted to
hospital as inpatient." For California, this wait was five hours and 26
minutes -- longer than the national average of four hours and 34
minutes.
But this is by far the longest of the three measures. The second
longest is "patient arrival to emergency room departure for discharged
patients" -- basically, the entire length of the visit for someone who
isn’t actually admitted as an inpatient after being seen by the E.R. For
Californians, this wait time was two hours and 49 minutes, once again a
bit higher than the national average of two hours and 19 minutes.
The third measurement is by far the shortest -- "patient arrival to
being seen by health care professional." In California, this was 31
minutes, slightly more than the national average of 29 minutes.
One might take away from Priebus’ tweet that someone going to a
California E.R. can expect a wait of more than five hours just to get in
to see a doctor or a nurse. In reality, they’re seeing a health
professional in about a half an hour -- and if their injury or illness
isn’t serious enough to keep them in the hospital overnight, then
they’re on their way home in under three hours. For those patients,
their
entire visit is much shorter than the five hours Priebus indicates.
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