The money is not coming to us as doctors, that's for sure! It is excruciating to hear of the price for individual plans for health insurance rising from $500 to $600 to $700 a month year by year. I see no evidence on the ground that there is some marked leap up in the amount of testing done. I did see 17 hospitals in the city of New York close since the year 2000. They didn't close because the operations were swimming in the cash of extra premiums. I did see multiple lawsuits against Oxford insurance for collecting premiums then trying to hold up paying cash to patients and hospitals.
It's embarrassing really. The good news is that the patients in their minds have made a clear separation between their hatred of health insurance companies and the doctor. Gallup organization has been tracking "trust" of individual professions since the early 70's, I am happy that the public trust of physicians has been at an all time high.
Probably the public realizes that we, as doctors, are taking as big a beating as the patients. We hate the insurance companies just as much. If I had to be in full time private practice and haggle with insurers everyday I would stop practicing medicine. I have chosen the less lucrative trail of being a salaried physician at a hospital because I get the blessing of being able to treat all patients equally. I don't turn anyone away because of inability to pay.
This morning I got to spend from five AM to ten AM, until ten minutes ago, agonizing over why certain people were sick, and what could I do to make them better.
I did not have to pay attention to their insurance. Good for me! Good for the patients! What about the hospital? Like many, the NYC hospitals themselves are on lifesupport. Another in Brooklyn will close this month if the state does not bail it out.
Yet, the premiums keep rising at approximately three to five times the rate of inflation. Yet physician aren't getting it, and the hospitals are literally starved to death.
Psychologically, I am relieved that I have never been falsely accused of "you doctors are raking it in with all the extra health care money". But, it is still an embarrassment. Sick people, the ones who are most vulnerable, are being gouged for extra.
So, the hospitals are poor and close. The doctor is not getting it. and yet billions and billions more are collected each year.
Collected by.... the people who then turn around and deny payments to hospitals? Ah yes, let's see.
1. America is ONLY western country with so much private insurance and thousands of plans
2. America is ONLY country with >10% of GDP going to healthcare
3. America is ONLY place where drug companies can re-brand, advertise and gouge out extra $ by re-discovering long acting versions of drugs they have had for years.
4. America is ONLY country where 1st part of healthcare reform required insurers to actually spend at least 80% of the money on healthcare. Wow! that is supposed to be an improvement!! Can you tell me any other business that uses >20% of TOTAL money for administration?
5. Drug companies spend more on advertising than research and development.
Wow!
I am sorry America, I am sorry that even the Mafia did not extort a >20% share of your business. Even the Gambino family knew this was not the way to help that business grow enough to keep alive their criminal protection business.
Let me apologize that ill people in their hour of need are gouged and extorted. Maybe we should have the Mafia go into healthcare. They provide protection and I understand they only gouged TEN percent.
