Walls

Great article Pat! I like the toon as well. I live in a university town with a med school. And Duke Hospital is right around the corner. The area is lousy with clinics. But one day I sat in the waiting room of my kid’s pediatrician’s office and chatted with a young mother. They had to drive over 2 hours to reach that clinic. It was the only one that would take their insurance. And her insurance is the one military families get. (Her new baby had a problem.)

And when I need my doc, I have to first leave a message with his nurse who is supposed to call back within a day (not necessarily THAT day). Then if she feels it’s important, she’ll refer me to appointments. If not, I’m not sure what she’d do.

You simply cannot speak to the doc. I’ve only ever made 3 calls to my doc’s office. The nurse called me back once after two days and never returned another.

I also have friends at the local hospital who say its mission is changing to emphasize revenue. For ex, its clinics will advertise for easy-to-treat problems and turf out more complicated things that are costly. Since those clinics are still part of the hospital, it looks as if they still handle any problem a patient comes in with. But that’s not going to be the case.

Of course, it goes back to less funding from the state, insurance companies and lots of uninsured patients, among other things.

We pay more for health care than any other nation, but the quality of it is far from being at the top of the list. And it appears it will just be getting worse–more expensive and of lower quality than it is now.

We are pretty much on our own I think, so take good care of your bodies!

Wonderful Cartoon!

The problem is not just government-controlled health care and what they will or will not allow. It is what options patients will have to pay for extra if they can afford it.

The other problem is that it is so difficult to find a doctor who is willing to take on new primary care patients now. What will happen when everyone wants to have their own doctor as they should be able to do? In the process of making changes we need to develop different levels of care like nurse practitioners who can write prescriptions and who will be fully compensated for their services. I feel that most of the time when we go to a doctor, it does NOT require a full-fledged doctor to take care of the situation. We will need more clinics that also should be fully reimbursed for their services. In addition we will need to have a functioning watch dog group to make sure people are not forced to have medical procedures or exams just to make sure that the nurse practitioner, clinic, or doctor is not dragging people off of the streets just so that they can bill the government or single-payer program run by the government.

We need to make changes, and I am happy to hear that Obama is leading to at least create serious conversation about a very important subject.

Let us remember that they way things are, many of us who have insurance are covering the cost for people who do not have insurance. And, as it is now, people are dying from not receiving appropriate medical care or diagnoses and hopefully this will happen less once we create an American form of single-payer health coverage, which hopefully will allow those who can afford it to buy more insurance coverage or pay for extra services.

Rich

Pat, good job. I am apprehensive even to start to comment. Because, I am in favor of a single payer system, and almost everybody here is not. But let me just say this… the system we have now is not sustainable, it is not the best, it is not the most efficient, it is not equitable and it is not free market. None of that. What it is is akin to a health care mafia. We can do better. Better because we deserve better, and better because for what we spend we should be getting more.

Very good article. Having been a frequent customer of the health care system in my area due to serious illness; I can confirm that everything Dr. Glasser said is true and then some.

All these commercials about possibly taking decisions out of your and your doctors hands are nothing but a load of crap. Decisions regarding your health care have long been out of your or your doctors hands and squarely in the hands of your insurance company where profit rules the day…not your health. People who for one second think otherwise simply haven’t spent enough time traversing our medical system.

It’s sad. I remember my older brother walking me to the family doctor’s office in the small town I lived in while growing up. He had delivered my brother and sisters and me. He treated my mom and dad and us kids, and my mom babysat his nurse’s girl. I had to go to have my finger poked for my regular check for anemia when I was little. It was a much more personal feeling. This doctor knew our whole family, as well as the families of most people in town.

I’m not too unhappy with my care from Kaiser Permanente. I did get to pick my regular doctor, whom I see every time as long as I call in advance for the appointment. Kaiser does lots of prevention care cheaply. If I need medication I pick it up at the pharmacy on the way out of the building, which is two blocks from my house.

That said, however, I still hope to find a way to keep my usual practice of seeing the doctor no more than once or twice a year. I keep myself as healthy as I can. And my goal is to die quickly at home when it’s time. (I know I can’t guarantee that outcome, but it is my goal.) I don’t want to have any of what inheritance I’ve scraped together to go to the healthcare system instead of to my kids.

….and now they want to TAX the benefits!

It would help if we could stop paying subsidies for the rest of the world in the form of outlandish costs for pharmaceuticals here in America. Add to that the risks of prescription drugs made in China, especially generics. But back to the subject at hand–Where I once had checkups every six months by a family doctor, it is now once a year. The VA is even in worse condition. Where the VA doctor was seeing me (and everyone else) every six months also, it is now like approx. every 18 months, then you are alotted 15 minutes. Assembly line care. Maybe the way everything has turned out the last few years we are lucky to have this.

You left out the Trial Bar. The US will never get a handle on Healthcare costs (without rationing, of course) until the reason for defensive medicine is dealt with, once and for all.

My grandmother had five kids at home by midwife. She never went to a gynecologist, internal doc, heart specialist, or any of the other specialists we have now. She ate fresh veggies, tons of meat, fresh fruit and drank green tea. Her strongest drink was ginger ale and some wine once.

She had cataract surgery at my parent’s insistence in her eighties. She recovered in a few days instead of the two-three weeks the doctors had told her.

She died just short of 91 years old.

When I asked my doctor to explain how my grandmother could live so healthy
and I couldn’t, he never answered me. From that day forward I decided I was in charge of my own health instead of the corporate medical world.

Now, I go to the doc once a year to renew three prescriptions.

good article Pat.thanks

Perhaps if the Hippocratic Oath were actually adhered to n all cases, none of this would be an issue. I saw pre-med students in college actually cheating on Chemistry exams. Since I was a stupid freshman at the time, I did nothing. Shame on me, but moreso, shame on them. I still feel a great amount of guilt. That having been said, I’m confident that most physicians are both competent and caring and are diligent in their pursuit of treatment for their patients.

I work at a 10 doctor clinic. I’ve been here for 21 years and have seen the changes. My docs are the best and are still willing to take the best care of their patients even though they know up front that they may not always be reimbersed.
A good sceario is the one my mother just went through. She was hospitalized for 11 days. Her bill was $27,000. Her insurance paid $92 and she paid $864. None of this made any sense to me. No wonder the health care system is in such a mess.

mamakay did Medicare pick up the remainder of your mother’s $27,000 tab?

Thanks for the great cartoon, Pat:

I think we in the U.S. are spoiled brats. We are raised with the fear of dying of some disease that if the Dr. does not catch early, you will be dead soon. Now, pills are advertised on TV. The latest disease to be concerned with is PAT or something like that. Do you have poor circulation in your legs? Then this could lead to (take your choice of symptoms, we’ve got them all anyway) so as your Dr. to get you on these pills to save you.

I was paying $650 per month for my wife and I, almost $8,000 per year, then more out of pocket for each visit, and a small amount for any prescription.
We stopped paying after losing some clients during the downturn. We pay nothing monthly. Our meds are actually cheaper than the co-pay we used to pay.
Just hope we don’t need any major medical procedure, but since we have not ever had anything very bad go wrong, we are just not going to the Dr. unless we are feeling very bad (so far, we feell good). This has been going on for 6 months now. Saved $4,000 out of pocket.

I had a relative that was a Dr. and very highly respected. He told me that 50%

Sorry. Must have hit the send button.

I had a relative that was a Dr. and very highly respected. He told me that 50% of the diagnosis were wrong, so you are being treated for the wrong disease.

I still think that the state-of-the -rt medicine today is similar to the state-of-the-art medicine that treated President Washington. They bled him to death with leeches.

Today, this is what the good treatment is, and later it is found out to be really bad for you. Stay away from Dr’s unless the bone is showing through your skin.

Having lived in 5 countries on 4 continents, I was most pleased with the Canadian single payer system. During the 5 years I lived there, I had been able to go see any doctors any time I liked with no restriction whatsoever, and I didn’t have to deal with any medical bill at all. In contrast, I find our health care system by far the most inefficient, inhumane and exorbitant among Western nations. At the root of the problem is the fact that our healthcare is aimed at maximizing profit for corporations and healthcare providers at the expense of the health and welfare of patients.

I am constantly baffled as to why people will spend more on clothing, hair and nails than their own health.

I go to a doctor who does not accept insurance. I write a check for her time. I do not expect my insurance to cover every single thing I request.

If you dont want a doctor to work for someone else, pay them directly. Especially your primary care doc, who coordinates the rest of your care.

Exchanging “evil big business insurance companies” for “the government” does not improve care.

Great cartoon and important topic, Pat. Hospital charges are outrageous and most doctors give you about 7 minutes and turn the rest of your appointment over to a nurse to draw blood. However, if one is lucky enough to have good insurance, hospital costs may be reduced drastically. Medicare is well aware of hospital scams and make them discount their charges a lot.

My brother was in UCLA Santa Monica hospital for 5 days and the charge was over $49,202 for medical services and another $5,050 for other services. Medicare paid $5,050, the amount they allowed UCLA. His secondary Medicare supplement insurance paid $1,068. My brother was told he was not responsible for $48,134. Patient savings: $43,084.

I hate to think what the cost would have been without good insurance. I still haven’t seen the bill from the next hospital he was transferred to where they did a half-assed job of diagnosis before sending him to a nursing home. When I tried to get his medical records as next of kin, I was told that because of privacy laws, that is impossible without a power of attorney for health care or a conservatorship, which I do not have.

Not only did the hospitals make outrageous charges, but his doctor dumped him the moment he was admitted to a hospital, and it was like pulling teeth for the hospital to get information from the doctor needed to treat his multiple long standing conditions. His doctor doesn’t like to take Medicare patients. Had the doctor treated him properly, there is a good chance he would’t have ended up in the hosptial.

I work for a doctor’s office and I bill insurance companies and medicare/medicaid. Looking at the way medicare is handled is not the way to go. It may be for the patient, but it isn’t for overall healthcare. I can’t even begin to list how many times I’ve had to fight medicare just to get a little money for the doctor and to get coverage for the patient. Some of you say that with the write-offs, well good for them, the doctor charges way too much anyways. That isn’t so from what I’ve seen in my doctor’s office. In fact, my doctor has been in practice for over 35 years, and will retire as soon as they make it mandatory for a single payer system. He’s tired of being dictated to by the government and insurance companies.

And from going to seminars, I’ve heard that from a lot of doctors. Do any of you realize that doctors pay upward of $150,000 in malpractice insurance a year. If you’re just starting out, you not only have schooling to pay for, and the malpractice insurance, but you also have overhead, as in office, office furniture, office costs ie: telephone and the list goes on. If a doctor does not make a “living” or profit, then what is the motivator for having that much costs involved? Would you work at your job for nothing? Would you pay for all your student loans, insurance premiums if you didn’t know that you would have the money available to continue to practice.

In January of this year, we filed with medicare patients and we received the payments in April. How many of you would work for 4 months before you got a paycheck?

My doctor is old school, he makes sure his patients have his home phone number, he’s went to their house, even to the hospital when he wasn’t their “doctor on record” just to make sure they were doing okay. He’s involved in every step of his patients care, but he’s quite tired of one) being accused of making money hand over fist and being part of the “problem” as opposed to fixing the problem, and 2) frustrated with the system himself as he gets dictated to as to how much time he’s suppose to spend with a patient (he doesn’t follow that rule) and because of that, he could be dropped from several insurances. And I can’t even count how many times he has not charged a patient because he knew they were down on their luck, but didn’t have the money to get theirselves better.

At this rate, we’ll be lucky if we can even keep doctors in the states. There’s more I could say, but this is near and dear to me on both sides of the issue. I mean, I also am a “patient” at times as is my family, but I do work in the field and I have several suggestions for what to do, but the government isn’t going to listen to us because they want their hand in the cookie jar even more than it is. This isn’t about “fixing” health care.