Comments on: Paying for health care – Brilliant!

By: NJOKU AMARACHI GIFT

NJOKU AMARACHI GIFT — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:56:53 +0000

urgent medical treatment.

By: arf

arf — Sun, 30 May 2004 03:33:25 +0000

Dr. Berry may not have solved the problem of the indigent, but he contributes to the solution. Many of the people he serves are working-class without insurance. Medical practices set up to accept insurance carry an overhead cost that makes everything more expensive.

By avoiding all that, Dr. Berry keeps his fees much lower than one would normally see.

So the working poor, formerly unable to afford primary care, now have a place to do.

Agreed, that does not address the problem of the truly, completely indigent. But let’s not make perfect the enemy of better.

By: RGL

RGL — Sat, 29 May 2004 15:21:03 +0000

I see this as a variation of the Singapore model, which has long been advocated by Dr. George Lundberg, former JAMA editor and now the CEO of Web.Med.

There, patients pay for their own office visits except for basic preventive services like paps and mammograms, with hospitialization and concurrent necessary services provided for by the government.

MSAs have not made their entry there yet, but private insurance is available for those services not covered by the government in out-patient settings.

The Patmos model discussed here, however, does not address the problem of indigents, most of whom don’t have the means to take advantage of the MSAs. Which means some type of a Medicaid-type system still has to be left in place.

This is an alluring concept but I still have concerns about the 40 or so million Americans who are either uninsured or underinsured.