First of all, I want to make one thing clear. In my 44 years as a physician plus 4 more as a medical student I have NEVER seen a doctor turn ANYONE down in times of an emergency or a serious illness, REGARDLESS of the patient’s insurance status. The bickering, finger-pointing, and accusations to the contrary that have occurred on both sides of the political aisle in recent years continue to astound me. NOBODY has been denied urgent care and I seriously doubt if ANY doctor would do so.
Nonetheless, the problem of how to handle non-emergency care definitely exists and must be dealt with. Furthermore, if our emergency rooms continue to be inundated by both emergency and non-emergency problems by patients without coverage, quality and effective and cost-conscious care will be impossible. We are seeing this now in some areas.
There are a couple of important facts to keep in mind about health care in the United States.
So now we have to come up with a health care system that considers all the above facts but still is compassionate enough to care for the health of its citizens. There is no “perfect” health care system. However, the system that works best, in my opinion, is the one that was present when I broke into medicine. In those days, America had by far the most advanced health care in the world. My plan would model health care after an old system—I learned from history.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of our four part series on an alternate solution to the current Affordable Care Act.