--- In [email protected], anonymousff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The right therapy is the right therapy. Sometimes it > > involves drugs; sometimes it does not. My concern is > > that too many doctors aren't interested enough in the > > welfare of their patients to find what the right > > therapy is. It would take too much of their time. So > > they just write a prescription. > > I share you concerns. However, given a majority of doctors work for > HMOs and have fairly rigid guidelines to follow, I think the issues > you raise are not fully on the shoulders of HMO doctors. Or the > HMOs. HMOs compete and offer cost-effective services, for the > most part, for the fees they are paid. Most HMO subscriptions come > from corporate health plans. They pay what they do, trying to stay > competitive. Look at the mess GM is in over paying higher than > normal health benefits. > > A problem, not necessarily THE problem, is that people expect > optimal health from their corporate HMO health plans, and wrongly > vent and blame the doctors for 'short-changed' treatment. When in > reality, the doctor, nor the HMO, nor the corporation are fully > to blame. Or even substantially to blame. Employees get the level > of health benefits per their total compensation contract. Its > never optimal. People need to pay extra if they want extra. Its > a sad fact.
I'll answer this because Americans really need to understand a little more about this "hard fact." It's a "hard fact" primarily in America, and primarily because Americans don't DO anything about it. I live right now in France. Before I had health insur- ance here, I had occasion to go to a doctor. The doc- tor welcomed me into his office, which was laid out like a comfortable drawing room, as opposed to a sterile, impersonal laboratory. He did all the tests on me him- self; no pawning me off on nurses and underlings. He spent over an hour with me and then wrote me a prescrip- tion for the antibiotic I needed. He apologized for the cost of the antibiotics: "It's *outrageous* what they cost these days," he said. The doctor's visit cost me 20 Euros (25 bucks). The prescription cost 12 Euros (15 bucks). Now I have health insurance, so I get reimbursed for such things, pretty much 100%. It's better coverage than I had in the US. Much better. It costs me 320 Euros (400 bucks). A year. My health insurance back in the US cost me 600+ dollars A MONTH. The health care situation in America is not a "hard fact." It's a travesty, an abomination created by uncontrolled greed and a lack of respect for the basic rights of individual citizens. My brother's situation was just one example of it. There are many others. Before Paris, I lived in New Mexico, a state that is so poor that an estimated 40% of its citizens have no health insurance at all, because they can't afford it. I'm sorry to vent, as you so accurately put it, but by moving to France I got to learn first-hand what decent, *caring* health care really costs. The policy I have is from an insurance company; it is not supple- mented in any way by contributions from the government. The insurance company expects to make a *profit* by selling full-year health coverage for 320 Euros, and they do. "Hard facts" are what we settle for. Nothing more, nothing less... Unc To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
