What if you went for a checkup with the doctor and just paid for it? You know, like you pay for bread and milk and such? Government regulations and health insurance oversight have infected the business of medicine. We don’t use insurance to buy bread and milk.
But when it comes to medicine, seems almost every bill we pay is the responsibility of our insurance company. The result has been skyrocketing demand for services by patients who don’t directly feel the pain of paying for individual costs. Skyrocketing regulations by third parties eager to control costs. And lots of harried doctors, virtually working second jobs as paper-pushers.
Doctors are getting fed up. Some are quitting altogether. But others are just quitting the system. Trying what Dan Rather calls a “new approach” to medicine: “boutique” medicine. These radical doctors no longer accept insurance as a method of payment. They’ll treat only those patients who pay them directly. And guess what? Turns out they can offer a reasonable service at a reasonable price.
One doctor told “CBS News” that he charges $40 for a basic checkup, and is doing very well, thank you. No more answering to a faceless third party and filling out forms all the time. He’s slashed his monthly expenses and doesn’t have to treat the patients like cattle to meet some kind of assembly-line quota.
In other words: a free market! Buyer and seller, agreeing to a mutually beneficial trade . . . all by themselves. What a wild notion. But I like it.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.