HEALTHCARE'S DEMISE TO

By Lindsay Pratt

This book discusses health care's problems, why health care's costs will become unsustainable, and why there will be a physician shortage within a year. A delivery system is proposed to avoid both unsustainable costs and the physician shortage.

I am a 94 year old retired physician, and although my writing skills are not the be

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lindsay Pratt M.D
• Release date: Sep 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781736002810

Book preview

cover.jpg

ISBN 978-1-7360028-0-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7360028-1-0 (eBook)

Copyright © 2020 by Lindsay L. Pratt, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Background Information

Our Healthcare Delivery System Prior to The 1960s

Our Healthcare Delivery System After the 1960s

Health Insurance Is Not The Answer

The Shortage of Physicians

Training Our Physicians

Our Government’s Contribution To Healthcare’s Demise

The Affordable Care Act

Healthcare is Not a Free Market Economic System

A One Physician Professional Society

The Proposed Alternate Healthcare Delivery System

Reducing The Cost of Healthcare’s Services By 30%, and Possibly 40%

Reducing The Cost of Healthcare Litigation

Reducing the Cost of Medically Unnecessary Healthcare Services

Reducing the Cost of A Healthcare Provider’s Service Charges

Reducing The Cost of A Hospitalization

Mandatory Copays

The Proposed State Sponsored HMOs For Patients Unable To Pay For Their Healthcare Services

The Proposed Free Healthcare Facilities

Why Are The Proposed State’s HMOs [Free Healthcare Facilities] Better Than Medicaid?

You Continue To Have Doubts?

It Will Not Be Easy

Some Final Comments

Dedication

To Memorialize.

This book is dedicated to my memory of the best healthcare delivery system in the world destroyed by a government seeking the political power of the public’s dependency on government for their healthcare services, and by a misinformed public obsessed with their need to have the government’s health insurance.

Preface

My previous attempts to awaken the public to their healthcare delivery system’s demise have failed. Perhaps the poor writing skills of a 94 year old retired physicians is the problem. But, a sense of urgency drives me to try again, and here it is.

My present home is an independent living facility, and my healthcare conversations with my peers have concerned me. They have no idea our healthcare delivery system has changed, and they have no idea their physician’s role in healthcare has changed. Furthermore, they have no idea the changing healthcare delivery system and the changing role of their physicians in healthcare are about to collapse their healthcare delivery system.

How the healthcare delivery system has changed, and how the role of the physician in healthcare has changed are discussed in this book along with several other challenging and controversial healthcare issues. The public’s awareness of, and their understanding of, those issues will assist them in acknowledging their need to support the restructuring of our healthcare delivery system as proposed in this book. Otherwise, our healthcare delivery system’s demise to unsustainable costs, to a physician shortage and to rationed healthcare services is unavoidable within this decade.

While reading the book, you will be challenged by many healthcare issues you may not agree with, and you may not have heard about, or thought about, previously. But, enjoy!

Introduction

I’m 94 years old, and my practice of medicine and surgery began in the early 1950s. At the time, patients were purchasing their healthcare services with their dollars, or, they were using their dollars to purchase the health insurance they were using to purchase their healthcare services. Patients unable to purchase their healthcare services were able to receive them in most physician’s offices, in most hospitals, and in the many state, city, county, and local community healthcare facilities offering free healthcare services.

But, during the 1960s, employers and the government [Medicare and Medicaid] began offering the public free health insurance programs, and following their introduction, the public has used those free health insurance program’s dollars to purchase healthcare service they would never have considered purchasing when their dollars were purchasing the same services. Our government has used its Medicare and its Medicaid free health insurance dollars to enter the healthcare delivery system, and to acquire millions of people dependent on government for their healthcare services. Business entrepreneurs, investors, and many other healthcare special interests have used the free health insurance dollars to obtain enormous profits.

The irresponsible use of the employer’s and government’s free health insurance dollars over several decades has been increasing the cost of healthcare’s services more rapidly than the rate of inflation. Those increasing costs are about to become unsustainable. In addition to the unsustainable healthcare’s costs, many unfriendly regulations and policies have been imposed on physicians over the past decade, and those regulations and polices have changed the physician’s role in healthcare. The changing role of physicians is about to create a physician shortage.

Within this decade, both the unsustainable healthcare costs and the physician shortage will require the rationing of healthcare’s services, and the rationing will create quality of care issues as more and more physician assistants and nurse practitioners replace physicians.

You doubt me?

The healthcare delivery system I knew, and I worked in, prior to the 1960s was both patient and physician friendly, and it was patient driven. But, I watched the introduction of the employer’s and the government’s [Medicare and Medicaid] free health insurance programs change the patient friendly and the patient driven healthcare delivery system into a politicized, an unfriendly, a health insurance driven, and a profit driven business system during the 1960s.

You question me? Lets examine some facts.

Politicized? Yes! Members in Congress have been seeking a pubic dependent on government for their healthcare services since the 1950s [a National Health Service, like England’s]. But, there was neither public support for a National Health Service nor public support for our government to enter the healthcare delivery system in the 1950s. But, our government continued to seek its goal of a public’s dependency on government for their healthcare services, and in the mid 1960s, government introduced Medicare and Medicaid. Both had millions of people become dependent on government for their healthcare services, and to obtain additional