As we await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Sarah Kliff of The Washington Post continues to do provide great coverage of the health care reform beat. In her latest blog post, Kliff points out that emergency rooms are not, despite the claims of some conservatives, providing universal health care. While hospitals are required to treat people with life-threatening conditions, the emergency care that the uninsured receive is likely to be less intensive and less comprehensive than the treatment received by those who have insurance. And emergency room care is expensive, which means that people without insurance receive care only when they can’t ignore their symptoms any longer; well past the point when most illnesses can be treated with minimal cost.

The claim that anyone can get treated in an ER–and thus we don’t need health reform–has always left me exasperated. It’s a willful oversimplification that turns a blind eye to the real problems low-income people face when trying to access health care.

Over at BoingBoing, Xeni Jardin is justifiably outraged that some kids have to resort to selling lemonade to help raise money for a parent’s cancer treatment. And she shares my deep disdain for the cloying treatment these stories receive in the media. Rather than questioning why our health care system forces families to the brink of financial ruin, the reporters who cover these stories for the local yammer on about the family’s can-do attitude and the generosity of friends and family. But generosity has its limits. The boy’s efforts have raised about $10,000 thus far, enough to cover one or two chemotherapy treatments. I hope the kid raises lots more, but I also hope that we aren’t too far from the day when families will no longer have to go begging for the money to keep Dad alive.

But that may depend on the actions of five Supreme Court justices.

Someday, Minnesota Republicans may offer real solutions to improving access to health care. Unfortunately, that day is not today. Instead, Republican legislators offered up a stupendously useless bill that would allow people to save their own money to pay for health care expenses. It sounds an awful lot like health savings accounts, which w0rk great if your health care needs amount to little more than a few Tylenol and an annual physical. They are less helpful for people with chronic health issues. Republicans emphasize that it’s a private-market alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s icky quasi-socialism. The fact that it does nothing to help the ten percent of Minnesotans who are uninsured afford health care is apparently beside the point.

Republicans are probably going to continue proposing non-solutions like this until the Supreme Court rules on the ACA’s constitutionality. Assuming the law is upheld, their stalling is only going to make it more difficult for Minnesota to effectively implement health care reform. And perhaps that’s the real point of sham legislation like this.