No Cherry Picking
Physician-owned hospitals were destroyed by the press for cherry picking healthier patients while supposedly leaving the sicker and poorer patients to other hospitals. Was it proven? Well, its debatable, but Congress banned new ones from opening anyway. Now an independent study, published online by the British medical journal, concluded that overall, physician-owned hospitals are not cherry-picking patients or limiting themselves to the most lucrative types of procedures and operations. So what happens now? I bet nothing. Our government won’t budge an inch on common sense stuff like this. On the other hand, watch these idiots allow the big insurers to merge so they can gouge the American consumer some more.
Trust the person, or trust the brand?
A century’s worth of advertising has left us with the unconscious trust of corporate brands over individuals. People are entirely ready to suspect physician-owned hospitals of selfishness, greed and mistrust, even if they are owned by the very physicians they see for their own care. However, some hospital/insurance chain owned by Investco, LLC or ProfitMonger, Ltd. are trusted. They put up billboards with happy little sunflowers and cute babies.
As long as we outsource our common sense, we will be part of the race to the bottom in healthcare.