My husband is a colon cancer survivor, so you'll understand when I utter the words FOLFOX-4. :-)
Waste? YES. Huge waste. I was looking at the bills from the oncologist. He charged $1300 for a two-minute consult. The insurance said, "Nice try," and gave him $250. If I'd been aware of (and perhaps motivated to save on) the cost of this, I would have refused a few of his brief pep talks. It was the nurses who did all the work. Most of the providers have no reason to want us to know what their rates are, because then we might be able to compare prices, eh?
As for med school, I'm not sure why it has to cost so much, nor why we can't subsidize it to get more doctors, nor why there is a cap on the numbers we allow in. A friend of ours, an extremely bright kid, wanted to be a doctor. He couldn't get accepted to medical school. Not enough slots! And one admissions worker even told him, off the record, that he was the better candidate, but they had to fill the remaining slots with females and minorities. First time I ever felt sorry for a white guy.
So how much sense does it make that a kid who's always dreamed of being a doctor, who has the mental and emotional capacity to be a darn good one, is now selling insurance? That's fucked up.
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Date: 23/3/10 23:41 (UTC)Waste? YES. Huge waste. I was looking at the bills from the oncologist. He charged $1300 for a two-minute consult. The insurance said, "Nice try," and gave him $250. If I'd been aware of (and perhaps motivated to save on) the cost of this, I would have refused a few of his brief pep talks. It was the nurses who did all the work. Most of the providers have no reason to want us to know what their rates are, because then we might be able to compare prices, eh?
As for med school, I'm not sure why it has to cost so much, nor why we can't subsidize it to get more doctors, nor why there is a cap on the numbers we allow in. A friend of ours, an extremely bright kid, wanted to be a doctor. He couldn't get accepted to medical school. Not enough slots! And one admissions worker even told him, off the record, that he was the better candidate, but they had to fill the remaining slots with females and minorities. First time I ever felt sorry for a white guy.
So how much sense does it make that a kid who's always dreamed of being a doctor, who has the mental and emotional capacity to be a darn good one, is now selling insurance? That's fucked up.