Interesting. Health care is a problem in capitalism, and this is another variable.
I wonder if there should be a distinction between how the hospital is funded, just like how public schools cannot have a religious affiliation. But I don't know enough about hospital/health care funding to form an opinion here.
I think capitalism just reflects how the red blankets are allocated in this case but the underlying story is about subtle inequalities that have always existed since the big bang. Presumably there would be red blankets in every system, e.g. in Cuba or Soviet Russia the party members had red blankets too. If you make the hospital completely independent of any outside influences and mandate no favoritism of any kind, there are still 'friends and family' of employees and so forth. Ultimately our best hope for narrowing inequality seems to come from technology and technology enabled processes that are simply unable to discriminate. If a future MRI machine is invented that can read its own scans as well as a top 10% radiologist, then every patient benefits and the subtle discriminatory tendencies inherent in human nature are rendered obsolete.
You can see this trend even outside the hospital, for example in primary care, with some doctors choosing to open concierge practices. In return for a few hundred dollar annual fee, you have a doctor responsible for perhaps 1/3rd the total number of patients. Meaning he or she can spend 3 times more time with you. For every MD/DO who reduces their patient panel, it's likely that a mid-level provider (nurse, np, or pa) picks up the slack. I would expect this trend to continue in the future.
You start describing a very positive situation where a Dr. is able to spend more time with a patient, but then immediately turn it into a zero sum situation where people have to be relegated to lesser care.
How about having more doctors in general and overall better standards of care? I'd gladly pay a few hundred a year to be able to get the care my family needs. Following the changes from affordable care act (aka obamacare), the main medical group in our city turned into something akin to cattle processing facility. Doctors are encourage to spend less than 15 minutes per patient! When we needed an urgent appointment for something that wasn't bad enough for a 911 call, but certainly had the potential to turn in to one if neglected for a few days, all we were offered was a slot 2 MONTHS from the date of the call!
I eventually escalated and escalated, but it turns out the supervisor I talked with simply double-booked our doctor...
If we can add money to the system that allows for better doctor/patient ratio, why is it a bad thing? Sure, the economics have to make sense and the real price of this "luxury" should be charged.
It's zero sum in that there are a fixed number of doctors today. We could train more, but the focus in health care is on decreasing costs, not increasing them. I can also tell you from experience that unless you are called to primary care in a near spiritual way, it's just not a very appealing job (work hours, environment, and compensation after many years in school).
Sounds like this is actually a pretty reasonable practice. You know that the NY Times would be hammering any sort of unethical results of this practice but this is the worst that the author can come up with:
> [Rich patient to author:] "Doctor, I’d feel more comfortable if we stayed [at the hospital] another night, just to be safe.”
> Although there was no medical reason for him to stay, I smiled politely and said, “Yes, that’s absolutely fine.”
Interesting story overall. I get the sense that the NY Times desperately wants there to be a class warfare angle here but seems pretty well handled by the doctors and the hospital.
Not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. Providing health care costs money and is run by human beings. I don't see why health care would somehow be immune to basic economics and incentives. People who pay more get better service, no matter how distasteful that may be. Trying to make administration of health-care more "fair" often just means making private health care illegal, which doesn't really benefit anyone.
Hospitals are trying to make good business. I see some of them are building hotel like structures for the rich, really great interior, luxurious and patients are treated a total VIP. Money Matters.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] threadI wonder if there should be a distinction between how the hospital is funded, just like how public schools cannot have a religious affiliation. But I don't know enough about hospital/health care funding to form an opinion here.
How about having more doctors in general and overall better standards of care? I'd gladly pay a few hundred a year to be able to get the care my family needs. Following the changes from affordable care act (aka obamacare), the main medical group in our city turned into something akin to cattle processing facility. Doctors are encourage to spend less than 15 minutes per patient! When we needed an urgent appointment for something that wasn't bad enough for a 911 call, but certainly had the potential to turn in to one if neglected for a few days, all we were offered was a slot 2 MONTHS from the date of the call!
I eventually escalated and escalated, but it turns out the supervisor I talked with simply double-booked our doctor...
If we can add money to the system that allows for better doctor/patient ratio, why is it a bad thing? Sure, the economics have to make sense and the real price of this "luxury" should be charged.
> [Rich patient to author:] "Doctor, I’d feel more comfortable if we stayed [at the hospital] another night, just to be safe.”
> Although there was no medical reason for him to stay, I smiled politely and said, “Yes, that’s absolutely fine.”
Interesting story overall. I get the sense that the NY Times desperately wants there to be a class warfare angle here but seems pretty well handled by the doctors and the hospital.