This is no secret. Take a look at who big insurance is backing.

Has been since 1998.

seems only fair.

Last edited Thu Mar 24, 2016, 08:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Paying your own bill directly in cash or check -

means that then you get a level of HONESTY which doctors in insurance plans are now often prohibited in giving to the insurance companies patients.

if they discuss anything the insurance company doesnt want to pay for they could get delisted. basically, the insurance companies can delist doctors at any time, for no reason at all. they have absolutely no appeal process. So doctors have to get pre-approval before ordering a test or even in some cases even before taking on a new patient, I think.

my information on physician gag clauses comes from two doctor friends I have who i used to see often but now live on the opposite coast from, and its more than ten years old now.

manner.

But you have to be uninsured to do that. if you have insurance they have to try to use it. So if you have crappy insurance that has been set up so you are basically forced into getting crappy care.

Class-mixing is FORBIDDEN.

Thats because people of different classes get profoundly different care now. They dont conceal that well, but they try to and its surprising how many people seriously think that they can pay a few hundred bucks a month and get care thats the equivalent of a fee for service plan or self pay. its not, its not even close.

have people ever heard the phrase "differential diagnosis"? thats what 'defensive medicine' used to be called (its what a dotor is supposed to do to figure out what is wrong with somebody who presents with an unknown illness. basically its what House - the TV show is about- that kind of medicine is now denigrated and demonised by health insurers) and its basically modern medicine as it should be practiced and is practiced in most of the world.

people perhaps used to be more hip to the fact that mediine varied a lot from town to town and state to state. And in different practices and communities within a town but also a doctors freedom to be a doctor varies drmatically depending on the patients insurance coverage.

I know that many people covered by a specific very large US MCO became aware of how bad they were becoming 9even though in the press they were constantly the subject of adulation for their 'high quality care' people became aware of individuals who had been killed by medical mistakes caused by the practices of these chains.) So it was my understanding that many people used to pretend to be uninsured and go out of network and several towns away - or to a different country! - when they were sure they were sick but their in network doctor was capitated and was not being helpful. And many people still do that. they go elsewhere for tests and they go elsewhere for resolving things they feel they need that they are not getting. imaging under some MCOs is difficult to get.

And sometimes indeed it would turn out that they had some serious illness. And then bizarre things ensued.

this is why they are trying to dumb down the entre health care system, including the more expensive PPOs-

MCOs hate it when people can go out of network and get a second opinion, that breaks everything for them.

... I got an unexpected reaction. I gave him links showing

a. The per capita cost of tax-funded healthcare in the U.S.

b. The per capita TOTAL cost of healthcare in other major countries (that is, the combined cost of public insurance, private insurance, and out-of-pocket spending by individuals).

And I pointed out that the latter numbers were smaller than the former number. That is, if we could import one of those foreign systems, several of which have better health outcomes than ours, then the government could fund 100% of all healthcare spending and have money left over.

His response, which surprised me, was that we need to pick one of those systems and hire the people who run it to come over here and set up their system in the United States.

There's a broader point here, which is that people *DO* sometimes listen to reason, especially if you explain things to them calmly and clearly without starting out telling them they're idiots. (Yes, do as I say, not as I do...)

We've set up this alternative reality here in the US where we believe that we're all still in the drivers seat but the reality is, they sold us out and when it dodnt stick as well as they hoped, now they are trying literally like crazy to lock us in to these deals that literally give away our rights to set our own healthcare policy to corporations.

That isnt a typo.

they have promised companies from lots of other countries those potentially millions of "overpaid" healthcare and education and IT jobs if they are the lowest qualified bidders.

After all, "its an emergency", right?

You have to stop thinking the way they want us to think and see it in the cold hard light of the facts and possible motives.

And utter lack of morality.