I worked in a situation for a few years reviewing medical files. Most
MRIs are actually unnecessary adding nothing
to the traditional diagnosis. I also knew some MDs most of whom said
the same thing. One bragged that he was helping his son buy a second
MRI machine so that he could get his income up to a million dollars a
year instead of the paltry half million he was at then. All paid by
your health insurance premium. Sometimes they get caught paying
kickbacks to other doctors who refer to them for an unneeded MRI.
MRIs are kind of like those drugs ads on television that tell you to
ask your doctor for the drug. That kind of changes his role from
doctor to pusher.
The other thing is the list of of things usually put up as something
your have to wait for. If you had seen as many people as I have,
permanently disabled and in constant pain from failed back surgery
and failed knee surgery a delay may not seem so awful. We must all,
at our ages, have known someone that was tortured with surgery and
subsequent treatment for cancer when there was never any hope for
recovery of the patient, but whose insurance was a pot of money for
everyone involved. I have first hand experience with that.
The past 10 years have put most people into HMOs where the whole
thing changes because of prepay and it is the interest of their
bottom line to deny tests or treatment. You see horror stories all
the time if you pay attention. It is calculated that HMO overhead is
about 20 percent of the premium, not counting profits. So out of
every dollar only 60 or 70 cents goes to health care, maybe less with
those that pay their CEOs half a billion a year. With Medicare it is
97 cents. Interestingly overhead cost for Social Security and
Unemployment insurance are both less than 3 percent.
In the USA some people can schedule an MRI in 3 days, but you can't
if you are in an HMO or uninsured which includes most people.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On Feb 25, 2007, at 9:14 AM, Richard Ociepka wrote:
> In the USA you can schedule an MRI in three days.
> How long does it take in a country with universal health care?
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