The duty of the physician, as embodied in the Hippocratic Oath, is to place the interest of the patient ahead of his or her own interest. The drive for profit stands in direct opposition to this principle. Here are some figures to illustrate what has happened to us at the hands of this predatory industry:
- The top 5 insurers in California denied, on average, 21per cent ($31.2 billion) of claims from 2002-2009.
- During the first half of this year, United Healthcare’s Pacificare denied 40 per cent of claims. The other four big California insurers denied 30 per cent of claims.
- A study this year by the American Medical Association showed that American doctors spend, on average, 44 minutes per day dealing with efforts by the insurance industry to avoid paying for care. The cost to doctors of this effort is $78,000 per doctor per year.
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