Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, December 31, 2009 12:49:50 PM
I had an interesting chat today. As I did not have to work, I went to get my flu vaccination. I would not normally bother, but as I am undergoing some treatment which makes me unusually vulnerable this year, I decided to get the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines.
The nurse practitioner who gave me my shots was more chatty than usual, and actually had an interesting plan. She said she wants to one day open her own "on demand" clinic which doesn't take insurance. After I chuckled and said "you may be out of luck soon", she explained that it might still be cheaper, as the prices could be much lower, since insurance pays so little for most services. (Though once the government starts mandating miniscule or no co-payment and forcing insurers to cover set services, people may find it cheaper to always use insurance, if they can find any insurers left in business, and any doctors willing to take it.)
Not surprisingly, she was in agreement with me that paying for routine services suing insurance is an insane system, but, as she said "everyone is used to it." (See "
The Insurance Sham", "
Redefining Insurance... To Actually BE Insurance" and "
Medical Reform, An Overview".) We also discussed that it is absurd that people complain about the cost of medicine, when compared to other nations, the US provides top notch care, care unavailable elsewhere, which will obviously cost more. (See my "
High Cost of Medical Care".)
It is interesting for any number of reasons, but it does point out something I have noticed. The medical supporters of medical socialization, what few there are, tend to be those who work in large, institutional settings, like hospitals, where they are far removed from billing, and also where they are used to micro-management of their decisions. Every medical professional I have met who is either self-employed or works in a small practice, tends to agree that any sort of "single-payer" system will be a nightmare. (Obviously, there will be exceptions, as with any generalization, but I do find those who are used to making independent decisions and handle their own billing tend to think more government is not a good answer.)
Obviously, this is a topic I will be addressing again and again, especially the madness of using "insurance" to pay for expected, routine costs. But for the moment I will simply leave my readers with the question of why, when medical professionals seem united in opposing nationalization, we accept the word of professional politicians, political activists and lawyers over that of the people who actually work in the field? Is there any reason to think that politicians and lawyers are either smarter or more honest than others? If not, then what makes them more deserving of our trust?
POSTSCRIPT
Most of my writing on this topic can be found by following the links contained in my most recent post on the subject, "
A Simple Question".