A doctor who won't take any insurance or Medicare? Yank their license, plus imprisonment.

[matt819]

96. One more thing

I'd be interested to know the statistics for doctors in private practice vs. those who work for large health care corporations.

In my area, there are, as far as I can figure, very few doctors in private practice, and, really, I don't know what their payment policies are. Most of the health care providers in this area are associate with a large regional non-profit system. This group is the network provider for many HMO and corporate systems and accepts private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. And, putting aside a complex discussion of medical costs and payments, this system is very happy to work with its patients to come up with payment plans. it's not perfect, but it works well enough.

I would bet that this is the case with many areas of the country.

Sure, there is a problem with the allocation of health care services to underserved areas, and maybe these areas have price practice doctors who don't process insurance and refuse Medicaid/Medicare, but, as I mentioned in my longer post, it's not their responsibility to correct inefficiencies in the market or other help fix the multi-trillion dollar health care industry.

You are clearly passionate on this subject, even if I think you are way wrong. My guess is that you or someone you know has a specific issue with a specific provider. Fair enough. But it's not reason to take such a violent and broad-brush approach to resolving the problem.