>Lucy, all I can do is sympathize with you, and hope the situation
>with our failed medical care system will improve. I am assuming
>you are in the USA, possibly in error, but it looks familiar.
>Medical care is now being administered by business men/women,
>rather than trained medical people, such as doctors, nurses, etc.
Texas has a good idea, if a non-physician tells a doctor how to
practice medicine (e.g. an administrator tells an HMO doctor to
cut corners), and there are detrimental results to the patient, the
administrator is guilty of a felony. In all states, unlicensed
practice
of medicine is a serious crime... I wonder why more disgruntled
patients (and HMO doctors) don't file charges against adminstrators
who cross the line.
>I can't go to the doctor of my choice, unless he is "in the plan"
>or I pay much more, possible everything, and hundreds of dollars a
>month come out of my gross pay, for this abomination.
An excellent argument in favor of medical savings accounts:
MSAs cut HMO administrators, insurance companies, and other
parasitic trash out of the health care loop.
> If someone
>told you you could only have your car repaired in one place, you'd
>protest, but they can make you go to the lowest bidder for medical
>care, and atitude is ,if you die..you die, and they have one less
>expense to reimburse.
Manslaughter? A local dentist was charged with this when a child
to whom he gave anaesthetic died... and the dentist didn't even do
anything grossly reckless or negligent. Wonder what could be done
to an HMO that, for example, rushed a patient out of the hospital and
the patient died? This wouldn't help the patient, but making the HMO
adminstrators aware that "if something goes wrong, the family will
explore criminal charges" might get an extra day or two to recover.
Too bad our medical system has come to this; instead of the
traditional doctor-patient relationship, we have insurance
administrators
and HMOs that want to squeeze out as many bucks as they can,
and patients must treat them as Prospero did Caliban: "... whom
stripes [blows] will move, not kindness." (The Tempest)
The doctor is caught in the middle: the HMO is his/her employer,
and may apply pressure to get him to cut corners. If he does, though,
his medical license is in jeapordy. It would seem, though, that
a physician could resort to the "unlicensed practice of medicine"
threat against an HMO that exerts such pressure... why the AMA
hasn't pressed this, I don't know.
-Bill Levinson
