Healthcare becoming increasingly stratified

[antigop]

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/1091754.html

Mark Giles has been seeing the same Arlington doctor for 23 years and has always been happy with the care. He credits his internist with discovering his prostate cancer early and steering him to treatment that led to a full recovery.

Now that patient-doctor relationship is over.

"It all boils down to money," Giles said.

He isn’t losing his job and primary source of health insurance, like many stung by the recession. At 67, Giles is retired and covered by Medicare.

His problem is that his physician, Kent Rasmussen, is changing his practice and will start charging patients an extra $1,500 a year. Giles’ wife goes to another doctor in Rasmussen’s group, Michele Burzynski, who is adopting the same approach: They’re reducing their patient load and adding the access fee so they can provide more personal attention and preventive care.

The Giles were looking at a price of $3,000 annually to keep their longtime doctors. That was too much for the family budget, so they switched to a new provider.

[elleng]

1. Its happening to many.

The whole 'system' is broken; rather, its NOT a system but it should be.

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. And who says that doctors

and health care providers are not complicit in our health care crisis? This kind of crap should be illegal. As should refusing to offer routine care to uninsured patients who have the ability to prepay.

So should the practice of charging different fees to different patients for the same service. Actually, most states have statutes on the books that make this kind of pricing scheme illegal. But it seems the dumbshit state attorney generals lack the intestinal fortitude to actually enforce these kinds of laws.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. The AMA spent most of the 20th century campaigning against

universal health care. They've always been an extremely powerful lobby, and are major contributors to the shape of the current "system".

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. Yes

I am aware of that.

There are so many folks here at DU who blame the insurance companies and big pharmacy without considering that many of the medical professionals themselves have also actively contributed to the current fiasco. They all share responsibility.