Doctors Who Fought Against Reform and For Insurance Company Profits Find Subscription Medicine

Summary

The article discusses the unintended consequences of healthcare reform in the United States, where doctors who opposed reform have now turned to subscription-based medicine, exacerbating the healthcare system's complexity and costs.

Abstract

The author updates on a previous post regarding the challenges faced by patients in the U.S. healthcare system, highlighting the irony that despite complaints about a two-tier system, a third layer has been added. Patients now face longer wait times for appointments, even after switching doctors within the same practice due to their original doctor quitting. The article criticizes the American public for being misled into accepting an insurance-friendly system that has not alleviated long waits or reduced healthcare costs. Instead, Americans pay high insurance premiums and additional out-of-pocket expenses. The author points out that while some doctors claim to have left the system due to COVID-19, at least one has started a lucrative concierge service, indicating a pursuit of personal profit rather than a break from medicine. The piece also accuses the American Medical Association (AMA) of lobbying against healthcare reform and suggests that doctors are now creating a subscription layer above the existing insurance layer to increase their earnings, leaving patients to navigate a more complex and costly healthcare landscape.

Opinions

The author believes that Americans were misled into accepting a healthcare system that favors insurance companies and does not address the core issues of accessibility and cost.
There is a sentiment that doctors who opposed healthcare reform are now benefiting financially from a system they helped to complicate by adding a subscription layer.
The article implies that the American Medical Association (AMA) has played a role in shaping public opinion against healthcare reform for the benefit of doctors' and insurers' profits.
The author is critical of the claim that doctor shortages and long wait times are solely due to COVID-19, suggesting that some doctors are leveraging the situation to enter more profitable medical practices.
There is frustration expressed over the public's focus on gun safety concerns over the need for healthcare system reforms.
The author is skeptical about the reasons given by doctors for quitting traditional practice, hinting at a desire for increased personal wealth rather than a response to systemic issues like COVID-19.

We complained about the 2-layer system and ended up with a 3-layer system

UPDATE from this post that no one cared about when I wrote it but should have.

It took months to get an appointment with my new doctor. (See link). At the time I made that appointment, they told me it was a new patient delay. I switched doctors, and that made me a new patient, even within the old group practice, and even though I didn’t exactly switch — my old doctor quit.

Months passed. I finally saw the new doctor; now he’s my old doctor. They messaged me. It’s time to make your annual checkup appointment. I jumped over to their portal to make the appointment, and now the wait is even longer.

Why aren’t Americans talking about this?

Americans were conned into giving up actual healthcare reform in favor of an insurance-friendly, government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded e-commerce website for insurance companies. We did so (against my advice), at least in part to avoid the threatened long waits for health care. Now we have actual long waits for health care, and we still pay top dollar for insurance coverage, and then we pay again for all the care not covered by that insurance.

This is nuts, but more Americans worry about the safety of their guns — not gun safety but the safety of their guns from people who’d rather they focus on healthcare and not guns.

Healthcare providers like to say the delays are because of Covid. I doubt that is the case. My old doctor didn’t quit in exhaustion over Covid. No. He quit to start an expensive, outside-of-the-system concierge service and soar to the top of the 1%. If his claims on his members' page are true — that he’s available almost all of the time — then he’s not taking a break. He did not stop practicing medicine. He’s practicing longer and harder. He didn’t remove himself from a lucrative medical career. He removed himself from the American health insurance system. Of course, his concierge patients will lay out a bundle annually to join the subscription membership and then pay again for the insurance they’ll need to have tests, see specialists, or go to the hospital, ER, or urgent care.

Doctors fought health care reform through their AMA lobby. They toured the US media and social media to incite fear and hatred for health care reform like it was a progressive, Bernie-voting, Jewish person at a Christian gun club Thanksgiving dinner party. Now, they abandon the system entirely for greener pastures and pocketbooks.

In addition to fighting reforms, doctors grew tired of watching health insurers make most of the money from the system they fought to preserve. Now they want their cut so these doctors top the insurance layer with a subscription layer, not to mention all the costs of the care we pay for out of pocket anyway.