I have previously written that I think we will eventually have some sort of government program that provides minimum care for everyone. Several recent articles emphasize some of my concerns about government programs. One , from the National Health Service, discusses a shortage of maternity care. In the US, this sort of thing would be a felony. Another, mentions the government’s deplorable practice of cutting doctor fees when fewer and fewer doctors are willing to care for the poor because the fees are so low now. When I was in practice, I saw MediCal patients, just as many of my colleagues did, but we would not allow our names on the MediCal panel of providers. We would see patients as a favor for other doctors or if they were relatives of other patients. Of course, as director of a Trauma Center, I saw many MediCal patients but we did not advertise our availability.
Then, of course, there are the stories like this. That may sound apocryphal but I have seen similar things many times.
Then there are a few brave souls who speak up and suffer the consequences. In a private system, lawsuits would result but a government system has no such vulnerability.
Anyway, these are cautions for those whose enthusiasm gets beyond the reality of dealing with the government.
Tags: health care, MediCal, single payer
[…] Continue Reading […]
>>>>…cautions for those whose enthusiasm gets beyond the reality of dealing with the government.
That is a good line. Most gov’t entities devolve into being ‘underfunded and understaffed’.
The ambulance story was good. The comments indicated that this is a wide spread problem. One EMT said 25% of his calls were for non-emergencies. My local small community had a newspaper article about the ambulances being used as a taxi service. One abuser said, “the government pays for it, why shouldn’t we use it?”