While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are making grandiose promises of Universal Healthcare, which the nation can not afford, something is happening that will solve our health care care woes if the government, politicians, medical establishment, health care lobby, and electorate will let it. It is retail health care. You will find it at such places as Target and Piggily Wiggily–and not surprisingly Wal-Mart. It was not so long ago that people paid for medical treatment out of their own pockets. Doctors made a decent salary like other professionals such as lawyers, dentists and veterinarians. But there was not the obscene amounts of money involved, which is now the norm. Then came health insurance. Health insurance started with the demands of the unions, and then it spread throughout the economy. The federal government then got into the act with Medicare. Can anyone explain to me why every single person over the age of sixty-two should get government sponsored health care regardless of their income or means? My god, as a group they hold the bulk of the nation’s wealth. Yes, there are poor elderly people, and there is a need for something like a greatly overhauled Medicaid system to take care of the poor, regardless of age. But there is no logical or economic reason for the government to provide free medical care to Warren Buffet. It is entirely political. Health Insurance and Medicare along with the mismanagement of the Medicaid system are the cause of our current woes. Insurance is designed to cover risks that don’t usually happen, but if they do it is devastating to a person. So people pool their resources in a risk pool, and those who suffer unusual devastation are covered. That is not the way health insurance works. It covers everything from sore throats, sprained toes to the truly catastrophic unless it is too big, then they often deny coverage. Coverage of medical catastrophes makes a lot of sense, that is the idea behind insurance. But coverage of mundane and everyday medical care makes as much sense as having food insurance. We would go to the grocery store and show the checker our food insurance card, and the public or private carrier would take care of the tab, less our five dollar copay. We probably would not even notice what the actual tally was. In fact, if I had food insurance I would probably choose steak over hamburger. And that is the problem with health insurance. There is no incentive on behalf of consumers to pay attention to costs, and no incentive on behalf of doctors and the medical industry to keep costs in line. Not to mention the cost doctors must absorb and pass on to patients to handle the insurance claims, which is often fifty percent of their office expense. And this has been the real reason that medical costs have become out of control in the last forty years. And with it private insurance has become unaffordable to millions of Americans and many employers can no longer afford to provide their employees with a quality plan. An estimated 18, 000 Amerians die every year because they can’t afford or can’t qualify for health insurance. That’s five times the number killed in 9-11. Not to mention all the people who are stuck in sucky jobs because they don’t dare lose their current insurance. But you know what we can start doing? Pay doctors with cash. There will be some people that can not afford it, and the government will have to help. But a lot less than nowadays, because it will be a heck of a lot cheaper. This is how people got health care thirty years ago, before America became infatuated with monthly premiums and co-pays. And there are some doctors who are already starting to reject insurance and accept only cash. They are able to charge less and spend more time with each patient because they do not have to hire four assistants whose sole duty is to process insurance claims. Dr. Vern Cherewatenko, a Seattle physician, went to cash only services six years ago when his practice was going broke. He and his partners were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just to process claims. Before, he charged 79 for an office visit and got 43 from an insurance company months later, minus the 20 in staff time it took to collect the payment. Now he charges 50. I know this sounds radical and I am likely to be burned at the stake with a stethoscope up my ass. But if people pay for their own medical care, doctors have to charge less and do better work. Because, when we pay for stuff, we shop around. But really, this is just traditional medicine. Dr. Cherewatenko started an organization called SimpleCare. It steers patients to doctors who offer cash discounts, and gives technical and moral support to doctors who want to start cutting their ties to insurance. Membership has grown to 22, 000 patient members and 1, 500 doctorsIndependent of SimpleCare thousands of doctors across the country have quit the insurance game. Some tired of the red tape and expense, others want to be able to provide their patients with more care than the insurance bean counters permit. When I first started, I thought it would be the elite. That’s not the case,” says Dr. Shelley Giebel, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Temple, Texas, who washed her hands of insurance eight years ago. Her standard, hour-long annual checkup costs 140. Everyone pays cash. If a patient needs extra tests or treatment, Dr. Giebel tells them upfront what it will cost.” If it is an urgent test, we’ll go ahead and do it. We’re not going to delay medical care because they don’t have the money in hand,” she said, ” Most often, patients return later with the money.”" It has not been a problem that people forgo medical care,” she said. Yeah, thats a lot better than a situation where people have to forgo treatment because the blood sucking insurance industry won’t pay for it or cover them. And we expect the federal government to pick up the slack to make these guys look better? Not surprising this old fashioned idea is finding its way into strip malls across the nation. Where there is a demand, someone will find a way to make money off it. And there is a demand for affordable health care. About 400 boutique medicine shops such as MinuteClinic and QuickHealth. are open for business and the number of clinics is expected to grow to over 700 this year. Wal-Mart plans to open 2, 000 retail health care offices in the next three years. If the government, employers and insurance industry don’t have to pay the tab for covering our basic medical needs and pass them on in one way or the other to us, we can use the savings to pay for affordable treatment. If there is an unexpected biggie, we can have insurance. That is what insurance is for. Does this make sense to anyone but me? Labels: economy, free market, health care, health insurance, healthcare, Libertarianism, medical insurnace, retail healthcare, socialized medicine, Universal healthcare.
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