Capitalist Healthcare

In the United States of America, the healthcare system is currently a privately owned and operated sector, but is a capitalistic healthcare system really the best way to ensure all people have access to sufficient, timely, appropriate medical attention? Most insurance companies require a co-payment at the time of services, after which the doctor's office will bill the insurance company and then the patient may possibly pay some out-of-pocket expenses, depending on the policy. Because the doctor's office is getting reimbursed based on the procedures performed and the insurance company's billing schedule, not according to communications to and from the patient, the doctor's office has no incentive to notify patient's of test results on a timely basis.

In my Personal Aside, I talked of possible impending bad news. Implied was that my doctor had some news for me and it would either be great news or horrible news; however, the time period that I had to wait for the news was excruciatingly long. My test was on a Friday and I was told that I should have the results by Tuesday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I called the doctor's office multiple times and they had neither received results, nor had they requested results. On Friday when I called, they informed me that the hospital that performed the test on me had no record of me being there the week before! Finally, I went to the hospital myself and got the test results.

I read the results, which were of a somewhat less than promising nature (I'm being sarcastic if you can't tell- the results were scary!). When dropping the results off at the doctor's office, they told me they had received them, but had forgotten to call me! Obviously, they don't get paid by letting me know my test results on a timely basis, but this is a life we are talking about! What if I had 48 hours to live? They had begun their reimbursement process, so what did they care? They wouldn't get their cash any sooner if they told me the test results on Monday or Friday or two years later.

The worst part is, on a follow-up test, the same thing happened agin. Where are we headed with this? Doctor's offices get their money, hospitals are only required to do bare minimum procedures for those who can't afford insurance...Shouldn't everyone be entitled to the same treatment? Government-run healthcare would alleivate part of this, but with all the bureaucracy and red tape, would timeliness be unaffected? Would medical advances slow or even stop because the inventors would not be as well compensated as they would have been under capitalism?

Where do we go from here? What improvements can we make without sacrificing what we've already got?