Drs Say Low Pay for DM Care Shortchanges Patients

>Doctors Say Low Pay for Diabetes Care Shortchanges Patients
>
>Almost one-third of doctors in an industry-sponsored survey said
>they didn't spend enough time with their diabetic patients and
>blamed low reimbursement rates for diabetes care ...

Prior to World War II docs were no different than any other professions. They made home visits and they did not charge outrageous sums and an incompetent doc was not consulted. But since then docs make appointments, do not guarantee their work, overcharge and for a while there could become wealthy if they hustled hard like used car dealers or like the AMA whose arrogance and greed come off like bad breath. The folks at alternative medicine have not forgotten how they(AMA) got rid of their competition, viz. by making it illegal for them to practice medicine.

Overcharging has spread among our medicos like a metastasis cancer,
ruining our medical system like the bad cars produced by GM or like
one of our kidneys about to fail. But the greed I speak of, the
capitalistic juice that seem to be giving the whole world a disabling
disorder has of late not only eaten at the American inerts but has
been imported all over the world with as much devastation as our
processed food. It is not only the HMOs, the drug companies, the
docs that covet bucks, it seems the whole world is infected. I
talked to my urologist yesterday about a possible surgery and he said
that maybe the anesthesiology department which has a monopoly at our
only hospital factory, may not accept my insurance. They were saying
private insurance companies do not pay enough, they discount the
amount of money they need, especially young docs who want to buy a
million dollar house available through our bloated real estate world.
The young docs become immensely embittered at their inability to
maintain the level of life enjoyed increasingly by docs since world
war II and only our life savings, income and other assets can make
them happy.

Here in lovely Santa Barbara where if you are rich you are welcomed,
the lovely city has always had one of the largest number of doctors
in the world per capita. And the poor are so thoroughly unwelcomed,
they have to work two or three jobs to pay the rent as every square
inch in this happy village is rented if it can be. The reason for
this amassment of medicos owes to the wealth that lives here too. My
urologist, a decent man by decent standards, suggested he has made
enough money and retirement hovers over his life but the young docs,
they may not be able to move in with the wealthy as they have in the
past or send their kids to Harvard or some other overpriced school.

The impact of all this on our medial system and care is that we seem
to be enveloped by an increasing number of birds of prey, rampant
greed not only among docs but all subsets of the medical industry.

Here is what I did not like about the discussion with my doc, he
suggested that the anesthesiology department would not only not
accept my insurance but make me pay the whole thing. I told him that
I would inquire why the local hospital allows one anesthesiology
company to hog up the surgery business and forces patients to pay out
of pocket and I would find a company that accepts my insurance. I
added that maybe the medical unions need to be broken the way Reagan
broke the controllers? Fortunately my doc is not a partisan and I
left his office in relative peace.

I wonder how bad off we would be if we dismantled our whole medical
system and started off with doctors who are not so spoiled. When we
consider how everyone seems to be involved in grasping whether the
outcome of it would be another War. Will the old messiahs bail us
out of this?

Posted by: "Joseph Navarro"