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Mayo Clinic, one of the country's top hospitals, is in the midst of controversy after its CEO said that the elite medical facility would prioritize the care of patients with private health insurance over those with Medicare and Medicaid.
The prioritization by the Rochester, MN-headquartered medical practice was recently revealed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. And it has quickly drawn out some sharp critics—as well as sympathizers.
In a statement to the Minnesota Post Bulletin, Dr. Gerard Anderson, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management, compared the prioritization to policies seen in developing countries. "This is what happens in many low-income countries. The health system is organized to give the most affluent preference in receiving health care," he wrote.
Likewise, Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper, expressed surprise and concern by the statements of Mayo's CEO, Dr. John Noseworthy. "Fundamentally, it's our expectation at DHS that Mayo Clinic will serve our enrollees in public programs on an equal standing with any other Minnesotan that walks in their door," she said. "We have a lot of questions for Mayo Clinic about how and if and through what process this directive from Dr. Noseworthy is being implemented across their health system."
Specifically, Noseworthy said in a video to Mayo employees late last year:
We're asking... if the patient has commercial insurance, or they're Medicaid or Medicare patients and they're equal, that we prioritize the commercial insured patients enough so... we can be financially strong at the end of the year.
In statements, Mayo has confirmed Noseworthy's prioritization and added that about 50 percent of its patients are beneficiaries of government programs. "Balancing payer mix is complex and isn't unique to Mayo Clinic. It affects much of the industry, but it's often not talked about. That's why we feel it is important to talk transparently about these complex issues with our staff."
Source: Ars Technica
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:50PM (6 children)
1. The hospital is a business. It has to make ends meet (whatever in their case meeting the ends means, up to and including attracting enough investments).
2. The headline implies that government pays (for generally the same service) less than commercial insurance. So the commercial insured patients cross-subsidy gov ones.
3. 1+2 = hospitals compete for a better patient pool. Whatever it takes.
Well, 0. Insurance drives prices up. No one cares to improve that so issues like in the RTFA will become more and more "normal".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fishybell on Tuesday March 21 2017, @07:58PM (3 children)
Hospitals don't really compete. You usually have the option of going to one or two different ones depending on your insurance and your location, and even then they won't/can't tell you what you have to pay beforehand.
Until you can go anywhere, and see what it will cost you and your insurance up front, hospitals and all care-providers in the US are going to be expensive.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 21 2017, @09:12PM (2 children)
You usually have the option of going to one or two different ones depending on your insurance and your location
In the major urban areas like NYC. Most places an ambulance scrapes up an unconscious person they don't have to ponder which ER because there's roughly one choice, the closest.
Given that hospitals mostly serve their neighbors, the best way to fund them is prop tax. You want a good hospital in your city, you'll pay. You want a not so good hospital, well then you won't.
To some extent we already do this and areas with the best schools and best people have the best insurance program and get the best neonatal care or best cardiac center or best cancer treatment center just following the dollars.
Explicitly paying via prop tax is an interesting way to formalize it. May as well cut a zillion middlemen out of the billing process and just pay out of prop tax, just like we do garbage collection or public schools or road maintenance here. You benefit from the library you pay for the library. 99% of the time the hospital you visit is the one by your house, so may as well pay out of prop tax just like trash pickup or police service or the library.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @12:22AM (1 child)
Property taxes have been one of the greatest causes of inequality in this country.
Its why the schools of the poor suck, making it 2x as hard for the poor to climb out of poverty.
And now you are arguing that the poor should get shitty healthcare too.
Fuck that shit you creep.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:09PM
Its why the schools of the poor suck, making it 2x as hard for the poor to climb out of poverty.
I thought it was pretty well statistically proven that only significant determinant in education outcome was demographics. Money doesn't matter. I wonder if health care is the same way. Or would be the same way if funded by prop tax.
It seems pretty normal to have a "top district in the country" in a burb near a "bottom district in the country" in a city where the city spends more money than the burb. Where I live the local inner city spends $14K per pupil and scarcely half bother to graduate and the test scores are dismal some of the worst in the nation, 20 miles away in the burbs we only spend $12K per pupil in a district about the same size, and come in near the top in many national rankings for standardized tests and academic competitions and stuff like that. There's a slight demographic difference between the inner city and where I live but human biological differences don't exist so the results must just be solely due to luck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @08:51PM (1 child)
And that, right there, is the heart of the problem.
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:11PM
You want some kind of access to healthcare, right? It is either business or government. Both options have problems.