Reply #17: And that's fine. . . [View All]

[matt819]

As long as everyone understands that this is the regime.

In this case, however, that was never the case. In fact, at one point I decided to stop taking the RX and was told that this was not a particularly good idea. In short, stay on the medication. End of story. If I wanted to see the doctor, I have enough sense to know how to do this. If the doctor wanted to see me, he has the capacity to let me know that this is his decision, not that of a gatekeeper.

And I have to come back to the cost issue. I mean, think about this. I know I seem like the proverbial skipping CD (okay, broken record), but if 100,000 Americans per day were required to see their doctors about matters that could otherwise be dealt with by phone, that's a daily additional cost of health care of $8 million per day (at $80 for that office visit). Is 100,000 a good number? Is $80 a reasonable assumption? I don't know. I'm not a statistician. But that 100,000 comes to 2,000 in every state, a minuscule percentage of most states' population. Multiply that $8 million out to $40 per week, and then out to more than $200 million per year. And let's add to that the time factor. Let's say every one of those 100,000 people works and has to take off two hours from work for a 30-minute appointment, and let's say they are being paid $10 per hour. So that's an additional cost of $2 million per day of lost production. So that "routine" visit is now costing $10 million per day. And, finally, let's take those 30-minute visits, and you have 50,000 hours daily spent by doctors, who are taken away from patients who might in fact need the personal service that I am taking away.

Is this simplistic? Sure it is. But it's one man's example of what is wrong. And, yes, it is rant, because I am pissed. End of rant, for the time being.