Health Care? You Bet Your Life
In offering solutions for medical insurance, politicians of all stripes keep reassuring voters about their right to be treated by “the doctor of your choice” rather than some faceless bureaucrat in a white coat under socialized medicine.
There are problems with this argument. Most Americans are now covered by HMOs, which present them with lists of “in-network” physicians either on their payroll or who have agreed to pre-set fees and, in many cases, face pressure to make life-and-death decisions on what’s best for the insurers’ bottom line.
In California, this divided loyalty recently came into focus with Blue Cross’ attempt to enlist doctors in reporting patients who fail to disclose previously existing conditions.
“We’re outraged, “the President of the California Medical Association responded, “that they are asking doctors to violate the sacred trust of patients to rat them out for medical information that patients would expect their doctors to handle with the utmost secrecy and confidentiality.”
The Blue Cross backed off, but the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship is definitely showing symptoms of stress. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is suing UnitedHealth for operating “a defective and manipulated database that most major health insurance companies rely upon to set reimbursement rates for out-of-network medical expenses.”
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4 Responses to “Health Care? You Bet Your Life”
“about their right to be treated by “the doctor of your choice” rather than some faceless bureaucrat in a white coat under socialized medicine.”
Seriously, who gets their own doctor? The only difference between socialized medicine and what we have today is either said faceless bureaucrat working for the gov't or a faceless accountants working an HMO making this decision. Nice trade off
I've heard the claim that wealthy foreigners fly to america to get serious treatment, but then again wealthy americans probably have to hop on a plane as well. The rest of us get regular service or none because its not covered. Managed healthcare is slowly strangling the system, and it can't go on like this forever.
“about their right to be treated by “the doctor of your choice” rather than some faceless bureaucrat in a white coat under socialized medicine.”
Funny how the insinuation is that the person isn't even a doctor, but a paper-pusher who will prescribe you medicines based on some official chart. Ridiculous.
Anyone who talks like this show that they know not the slightest thing about how universal health care actually works in Europe. I live in Spain. I have a general practitioner at a nearby clinic. She do all the things normal GPs do, general diagnosis, refilling prescriptions (though that's going to be automated soon, to give more time to diagnosis patients), write up blood tests or refer me to specialists. If for some reason, or no reason, I don't like my GP, I can change anytime I like. I don't even have to give a reason, I just go to the front desk and say I want to change doctors. I'll be given a choice of times (morning, midday and afternoon, to suit different schedules) and violá, new doctor.
Besides that there is always the implication that if there's universal health care, you won't be able to go to a private doctor, you'll be forced into the government system. That, of course, is utter hogwash. Spain has lots of private hospitals, doctors and insurance companies, but those of us who can't afford them have recourse.
I had read about these items last week. I dismiss Cuomo and New York immediately; political grandstanding and appealing to baser instincts are routine in that state. The California news story is much more meritorious. Yes, Blue Cross was trying to get doctors to “rat” on their patients, to divulge anything that could be the basis for (retroactive) cancellation of insurance for pre-existing conditions, something for which Blue Cross in California is already known.
[example article]
“Blue Cross and other insurers have faced blistering criticism for the practice, known as rescission, of retroactively canceling coverage after individual policyholders file medical claims.
Health insurance companies have a legal right to cancel coverage if a member lied or withheld medical information from his or her health questionnaire. But insurers have been accused of using minor discrepancies and omissions as grounds for pulling coverage, leaving members with huge medical bills.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/…
“there is always the implication that if there's universal health care, you won't be able to go to a private doctor, you'll be forced into the government system”
Be aware that what is at the forefront of change here in the USA insofar as “Medicare For All” is concerned is that the providers will remain nominally private, but they would (in Conyers-Kucinich) be converted to non-profit providers and the federal government truly would be a monopsony (“single-payer”) with no private duplication (outside-the-system) practice permitted. (The bill has some flaws that would make it unacceptable and any future Medicare extension would be different, but the Conyers-Kucinich bill is the de facto example model we have currently.) This is the bill that should be examined currently to be up to date on this subject (with perhaps visiting some Web sites or browsing related current publications — in addition to Conyers, an even farther-left party, Physicians for a National Health Program is probably the best known source of information).
Conyers (HR 676)
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm
PNHP (“Health Care is a Human Right”)
http://www.pnhp.org/
Also, for those who like (now) used books, lefty Konner's “Dear America” was a far-left bashing of the early 1990s HillaryCare scheme. (He was like other lefties too cowardly or dishonest to state that it was fascistic, perhaps because a fellow rad-lib and many Dems engineered it, but fascistic it was, and incorporating HMOs it did. “Shoveling vast quantities of taxpayer dollars into the furnaces of corporate greed…”) I may have exerpts handy that I may be able to provide, if I look sometime. That book was certainly better than the HillaryCare book, discussing taxation for the scheme in the most sickening examples of euphemism, as people being “asked to contribute” rather than being required to pay taxes. (And if I were to decline?)
Also, start reading on page six (actual) of this document.
http://www.nyas.org/publications/sciences/pdf/t…