Brad, I've already told you that you are too good to be anxious about small things.
At the end of 20 years, your doctor will probably retire, so you will have to get used to another. Groups of doctors are better than single doctors, for they can fill in for each other. There's always a doctor there when you need him. The difference between entities such as Kaiser and (say) the Canadian National Health Service, is that Kaiser has to compete. If standards go down they will lose members to a competing service. Standards have apparently dropped in the UK even though they continue to pour money into it. You can choose a private doctor and I understand a lot do, but when the doctor feels you need hospital, you go into a NHS hospital (if you can get in). Harry ******************************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242 http://haledward.home.comcast.net ******************************************** -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad McCormick, Ed.D. Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 5:40 AM To: pete Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Private health care (was E.European...) pete wrote: > On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>Why do you see the private sector is terrible at healthcare? I've >>already described the Kaiser-Permanente system, which I would say was >>the equal of any other in the world - private or government. [snip] First, a personal story: Yesterday at work the head of HR sent around an email saying that as of January 1 the company is changing to a new healthcare provider (Old: Aetna and Oxford; new: Blue Cross/Blue Shild). It was about 1 PM, and I was thinking I might get thru the day without taking an Anti-anxiety pill, but that email raised my anxiety level way up because I worried that my current doctors might not acept the new insurance. I called the medical group I use, and they said they accept BC/BS "PPO" and "Identity" plans. I emailed the head of HR and asked if our new insurance was one of these. At first the head of HR replied that I would find out at the enrollment meeting on Nov 20, which did not help calm me down, but a while later I received another email saying that the plan was one the medical group I go to accepts. My anxiety level started going back down. I thanked the head of HR *profusely* for having checked this out for me. Now, some thoughts: The private sector. Technically, or, as I would prefer to say, "formally", Kaiser-Permanente, Oxford, BC/BS et al. are private sector. But, from the point of view of me as a patient or my doctor as a member of a "medical group" which itself may have well over 100 employees, these entities are powerful bureaucracies with which we as individuals interact much the same way as we would interact with a government agency. Functionally ("materially"), I think that it is misleading to call these non-governmental bureaucratic institutions "private sector". My idea of private sector would be the old doctor in individual private practice. I do remember when my dentist worked alone. I think there are at least 3 "sectors": (1) Institutional-A (AKA "government"), (2) Institutional-B (non-"government" corporate institutions which have powerful influence over the shape of individuals' lives), and (3) Private. Persons should not have to live in fear that they will no longer be able to see the doctor they have been seeing for 20 years ("You can always pay out of pocket, fella." "Not really, because the fee structure is based on insurance reimbursement rates, not what average working persons could pay out of pocket...."). I have previously said I think that if our social system really started encouraging healthful life style, and if medical research was oriented more toward high-leverage problems, we could minimize the problem of having to ration health care. ("low leverage" are things like 50 person team 50 hour operations to try to separate one pair of conjoined twins, etc.). Government or "private", we live in a world that requires high levels of social coordination, don't we? Of course that too is something social policies could try to reduce over time. And a stitch in time does often save nine. (Was this worth writing? I hope I did not waste your time.) \brad mccormick --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.541 / Virus Database: 335 - Release Date: 11/14/2003 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
