Reply #20: The stuff about "not choosing your own doctor" is [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

from the British system, where doctors are government employees and are assigned to certain locations.

Even so, with all the talk about "choosing your own doctor," if you go to an HMO, you are presented with a list of doctors, who at that point are just names to you. So you get to choose--from a list of people that you know nothing about. Big deal.

I'm self-employed. I just spent nine years enrolled in one of the largest HMOs in the country until moving out of its service area. Although I supposedly had a personal physician, it was nearly impossible to get in to see her, because the HMO "cut costs" by referring everything that wasn't life-threatening to nurse practitions, nurse midwives, and physician's assistants. Even so, my monthly premiums went from $110/month to $275/month, the copayments went from 10% to 20%, the hospitalization charge went from nothing per day to $200 per day (even though you had to be half dead or scheduled for major, major surgery to get hospitalizedand, and even then they kicked you out while you were still groggy from the anesthesia practically), the ambulance charge went from $50 to $500, and I had no drug coverage.

I cannot believe that actual costs went up 150% in nine years. It looks as if the shareholders were demanding "performance" and got it on the backs of the enrollees.

If your employer is still paying for your health coverage, count yourself lucky. That may not be true next year if your employer decides that health insurance is "too expensive."

By the way, I know an American who lived in England for nine years. After never having to worry about paying for his medical expenses, he found the U.S. system infuriating, even though he (big deal) "got to choose his own doctor."