Joe Willmann wrote:

For an eye opening experience sit down with a doctor and ask them. You
What they say? My wife's doctor has quit.

I will not deny that paperwork does add a lot to the cost. But this is
not why the doctor quit. The doctor quit because he/she did not want to
take the only other option out the Work for an HMO.

I was a determined pre-med a decade ago until I realized this.

you go out and double your staff what do you think happens? Your cost
goes up so your price has to too.

Fine, now picture this: You run an HMO, and your doctors prescribe meds.
You pay the (vast?) majority of the cost of the meds (for example, I pay
$15 per prescription fill at Kaiser, no matter what the medicine is).
Now you have a patient that just got diagnosed with AIDS. The drug
cocktail costs you $2000 a month. There are no generics because the
drugs are under patent. You can only charge the patient $100 a month.
Can you say "OUCH!"?

Now another scenario: The allergy medicine Allegra costs $50 per box. A
week later the patent runs out and immediately generics are sold for it.
Result: Allegra and the generics drop in cost to $7 per box. Also
immediately, the request is approved to dispense Allegra over the
counter, reducing your costs even more. All of this because the patent
monopoly ended.

The money isn't going to the health care people. It is being swallowed
by overhead and taxes.

Oh puhleeze! It's not going to the doctors, and to a large extent, it's
not going to the HMO operators either. I already mentioned who it's
going to.

But you're right, hospitals are folding left and right due to several
reasons.

--
gabriel