Poor people, health care, and the United States

[David S]

IMHO this is how routine healthcare should be handled. Administrative costs are virtually eliminated.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/business/0505/11/C01-177938.htm
Clinics offer pay-as-you-go health care for uninsured
But the cash-only service doesn't help those who need more than routine checkup.
By Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News
 
Daniel Mears / The Detroit News
 

GARDEN CITY -- Patients shouldn't bother flashing an insurance card for Dr. Deanna Master -- she won't take it.
The Garden City physician is among a small but growing number of doctors shunning the red tape and bureaucracy of health insurance in favor of a cash-only system.
Doctors who've stopped taking medical insurance say the money they save by not having to process paperwork allows them to keep rates affordable for people who have jobs but are uninsured -- a growing demographic in Michigan. More than 300,000 of the state's 1.1 million uninsured have jobs, based on data from the National Health Interview Survey.
Master opened her clinic on Cherry Hill Road about a year ago and draws about 120 patients a week who pay a set fee for a specific service: $45 for an office visit, $10 for most tests and more than $35 for procedures such as a skin biopsy.
It's pay-as-you-go health care that harkens to a time before HMOs, PPOs, deductibles and co-pays. Master says she's able to spend more time with patients and work shorter hours because her system is more efficient.
"This is how medicine used to be," Master said. "You get a service, and then you pay for it."

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

IMHO this is how routine healthcare should be handled. Administrative costs are virtually eliminated.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/business/0505/11/C01-177938.htm
Clinics offer pay-as-you-go health care for uninsured
But the cash-only service doesn't help those who need more than routine checkup.
By Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News
 
Daniel Mears / The Detroit News
 

GARDEN CITY -- Patients shouldn't bother flashing an insurance card for Dr. Deanna Master -- she won't take it.
The Garden City physician is among a small but growing number of doctors shunning the red tape and bureaucracy of health insurance in favor of a cash-only system.
Doctors who've stopped taking medical insurance say the money they save by not having to process paperwork allows them to keep rates affordable for people who have jobs but are uninsured -- a growing demographic in Michigan. More than 300,000 of the state's 1.1 million uninsured have jobs, based on data from the National Health Interview Survey.
Master opened her clinic on Cherry Hill Road about a year ago and draws about 120 patients a week who pay a set fee for a specific service: $45 for an office visit, $10 for most tests and more than $35 for procedures such as a skin biopsy.
It's pay-as-you-go health care that harkens to a time before HMOs, PPOs, deductibles and co-pays. Master says she's able to spend more time with patients and work shorter hours because her system is more efficient.
"This is how medicine used to be," Master said. "You get a service, and then you pay for it."

Doctors couldn't make a decent living this way because people would never go to the doctor.  This would truly damage the cause of preventative medicine...people would never get check-ups, and would just wait until their problems got serious enough to go to the hospital.

[David S]

This doctor is making a living at it. Lets look at the cost ;
Lets say you are married with two kids and you each go to the doctor twice a year thats $45 per visit x 2 visits per year x 4 people. That equals $360 per year. Are you not willing to pay that? You cheap SOB.

Beyond that if you have health insurance the insurance company would have to pay it and they would make sure your rates were high enough to cover it plus their costs plus profits. Same for government healthcare except you would get the bill in your taxes instead of from your insurance company.

Fee for service is the most economical way to pay for routine care.


BTW Nick I must give you credit for having an uncanny ability to look at straightforward information and arrive at conclusions which are diametrically opposed to the facts.

[John Dibble]

IMHO this is how routine healthcare should be handled. Administrative costs are virtually eliminated.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/business/0505/11/C01-177938.htm
Clinics offer pay-as-you-go health care for uninsured
But the cash-only service doesn't help those who need more than routine checkup.
By Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News
 
Daniel Mears / The Detroit News
 

GARDEN CITY -- Patients shouldn't bother flashing an insurance card for Dr. Deanna Master -- she won't take it.
The Garden City physician is among a small but growing number of doctors shunning the red tape and bureaucracy of health insurance in favor of a cash-only system.
Doctors who've stopped taking medical insurance say the money they save by not having to process paperwork allows them to keep rates affordable for people who have jobs but are uninsured -- a growing demographic in Michigan. More than 300,000 of the state's 1.1 million uninsured have jobs, based on data from the National Health Interview Survey.
Master opened her clinic on Cherry Hill Road about a year ago and draws about 120 patients a week who pay a set fee for a specific service: $45 for an office visit, $10 for most tests and more than $35 for procedures such as a skin biopsy.
It's pay-as-you-go health care that harkens to a time before HMOs, PPOs, deductibles and co-pays. Master says she's able to spend more time with patients and work shorter hours because her system is more efficient.
"This is how medicine used to be," Master said. "You get a service, and then you pay for it."

Doctors couldn't make a decent living this way because people would never go to the doctor.  This would truly damage the cause of preventative medicine...people would never get check-ups, and would just wait until their problems got serious enough to go to the hospital.

The optomitry clinic at my college(privately run, they just rent space in the student center) doesn't accept insurance, but they do a very good business. Because there's no middle-men, they have extremely low prices, which of course keeps business up.

[angus]

Let's recap:

The opebo/angus intellectual academic curiosity lead to explorations of welfare possibilities.  We have established by experiment at least two observations about our welfare system.  They are:

1.  a single leisure-class man with rich parents receives need-based assistance.
2.  a working-class man with no parents and two additional dependents does not qualify.

that's seems a little bizarre.  and in any case I'd view such a system with suspicion.

Shira expects to try to run a nation with 300000000 residents of every creed, religion, race, and ethnicity the way small homogeneous populations are run.  Maybe we should also reneg on the anti-whale hunting ban, since we know that Norway and Japan are not signatories and have life expectancies, at 81, the longest in the world. 

A18 refuses to recognize that poverty exists.

And the Libertarians want to eliminate the ultra-powerful insurance lobby by circumventing their minions.

Is that about right?

Seems that the Libertarian notion makes sense to me.  Good thing I had decent public schools to attend so that I can read what the wise libertarians are writing.  There's a paradox for you John. 

[opebo]

Hah, funny post angus. 

And certainly the libertarians have the simplest solution - of course it will, I'm sure you realize, lead to a certain amount of human misery, untreated illness, death in the streets, starvation, and that sort of thing.  Which is fine, and a matter of personal preference.  Personally I don't mind, I'm just surprised the great majority don't.  The alternative does, as you point out, lead to a certain amount of abuse and 'unfairness' - as your case and mine demonstrate.  Particularly mine.

[Shira]

 Because there's no middle-men, they have extremely low prices, which of course keeps business up.

Healthcare should not be a business but an egalitarian service provided by the federal government.

[A18]

Federal health care is unconstitutional.

A18 refuses to recognize that poverty exists.

Poverty as relative to the rest of a particular society, or poverty in this country, relative to poverty on earth, measured by all the people of all the generations in time?

[John Dibble]

Because there's no middle-men, they have extremely low prices, which of course keeps business up.

Healthcare should not be a business but an egalitarian service provided by the federal government.

Healthcare should not be an egalitarian service provided by the federal government but a business.

[David S]

 Because there's no middle-men, they have extremely low prices, which of course keeps business up.

Healthcare should not be a business but an egalitarian service provided by the federal government.

How about food, clothing and housing? Are they not even more essential than health care? Should government provide everything for everyone?

[A18]

 Because there's no middle-men, they have extremely low prices, which of course keeps business up.

Healthcare should not be a business but an egalitarian service provided by the federal government.

How about food, clothing and housing? Are they not even more essential than health care? Should government provide everything for everyone?

Give it another 100 years. It never ends.