Will America's Oligarchs be able to keep their concierge health care under the new plan?

[KansDem]

For a Retainer, Lavish Care by 'Boutique Doctors'

--excerpts--
Joan Holzman, 69, takes no medicines and has no health problems; she comes to the office once a year for a physical exam, an X-ray, an electrocardiogram and blood tests. "I adore it," Ms. Holzman said. "Before, wherever you went you felt like cattle. But everyone here is top-notch - the doctors, the secretaries, the nurses. They're warm, like family. It's a wonderful feeling of security."

"It's like having insurance and not using it," Mrs. Kupps said. "I've been a well person. These little things are ridiculous. But here I can get them dealt with right away, they don't build up. I've heard stories from my friends, when they get ill, they can't get in to see their doctor for weeks."

In Dr. Kaminetsky's practice of three doctors all the patients are concierge patients. Retired patients are sometimes enrolled by their children, who may also cover the retainer fees. About 10 percent of the patients are seen free of charge, "scholarship patients" who the doctors have decided are in real need of the extra services and whose yearly retainer fees are waived. Because the practice has a 96 percent annual retention rate, its waiting list of several hundred names moves up slowly.

I wonder if any of these rich folks have secret accounts in UBS Bank (Switzerland), or other offshore banks, so they won't have to pay taxes that could bring health care to all Americans...

[ThirdWorldJohn]

1. If they do have off shore secret accounts the IRS is right now giving them amnesty to declare the

fact that they are tax cheats.

[FarCenter]

2. If a wing of your local hospital is named after you

My guess is that you will get preferential treatment.

[TimesSquareCowboy]

3. My wife worked as a nurse at a hospital here in Manhattan.

If you donated to the hospital, you were given a VIP card. Nurses were instructed that when a patient showed that card, the nurses were to drop everything else and tend to that person. I don't know how much you had to donate to get it, probably in the hundreds of thousands, but for Wall St executives that kind of money is easy to come by.