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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
SAN FRANCISCO — When John Battelle's teenage son broke his leg at a suburban soccer game, naturally the first call his parents made was to 911. The second was to Dr. Jordan Shlain, the concierge doctor here who treats Mr. Battelle and his family. "They're taking him to a local hospital," Mr. Battelle's wife, Michelle, told Dr. Shlain as the boy rode in an ambulance to a nearby emergency room in Marin County. "No, they're not," Dr. Shlain instructed them. "You don't want that leg set by an E.R. doc at a local medical center. You want it set by the head of orthopedics at a hospital in the city." Within minutes, the ambulance was on the Golden Gate Bridge, bound for California Pacific Medical Center, one of San Francisco's top hospitals. Dr. Shlain was there to meet them when they arrived, and the boy was seen almost immediately by an orthopedist with decades of experience.
For Mr. Battelle, a veteran media entrepreneur, the experience convinced him that the annual fee he pays to have Dr. Shlain on call is worth it, despite his guilt over what he admits is very special treatment. "I feel badly that I have the means to jump the line," he said. "But when you have kids, you jump the line. You just do. If you have the money, would you not spend it for that?"
Increasingly, it is a question being asked in hospitals and doctor's offices, especially in wealthier enclaves in places like Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and New York. And just as a virtual velvet rope has risen between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else on airplanes, cruise ships and amusement parks, widening inequality is also transforming how health care is delivered. Money has always made a big difference in the medical world: fancier rooms at hospitals, better food and access to the latest treatments and technology. Concierge practices, where patients pay several thousand dollars a year so they can quickly reach their primary care doctor, with guaranteed same-day appointments, have been around for decades.
But these aren't the concierge doctors you've heard about — and that's intentional.
Dr. Shlain's Private Medical group does not advertise and has virtually no presence on the web, and new patients come strictly by word of mouth. But with annual fees that range from $40,000 to $80,000 (more than 10 times what conventional concierge practices charge), the suite of services goes far beyond 24-hour access or a Nespresso machine in the waiting room.
Indeed, as many Americans struggle to pay for health care — or even, with the future of the Affordable Care Act in question on Capitol Hill, face a loss of coverage — this corner of what some doctors call the medical-industrial complex is booming: boutique doctors and high-end hospital wards.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @05:39PM (22 children)
Oh, whether or not they'd do the same if they were rich has nothing to do with the fact that literally guillotining the richest half a percent of people(and their inheritors) in every country would magically solve more problems than it would cause. No policy changes, no justice served, nothing else, it would still improve matters.
I'm well aware that it's immoral. It is explicitly wrong to kill someone for being a rational, non-violent part of a broken apparatus. Only part of me really can't help but think about how much good it would do everyone else.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @05:53PM (21 children)
What you propose is not only dangerous and unethical, but also unlawful. It would do neither.
1) It would cause shit-storm of problems.
2) 30-100 years later (depending on how long it would take for dust to settle) the same exact thing would still take place. So at best you are just advocating for a band-aid. Unfortunately this has been the case time and again in history. With ever more interesting array of idiots believing they have somehow stumbled upon the real solution where no one else had for thousands of years. Eating the rich has been done many times before. The outcome was shit for everyone involved. And it lead right back to square one eventually.
Also, whatever this article says is just propaganda by Marxists meant to stir up "class struggle." It is not a real fucking problem, and it does not need fixing. The example that was cited is actually quite possibly a symptom of inefficiency that is being corrected by free-market solution. If there is a line in one place, but no line in another, the sick who are not in danger of expiring SHOULD be routed somewhere where they can get the help they need without waiting in a fucking line, making everyone else who comes in after them wait that much longer. By this guy paying out of pocket to go elsewhere EVERYONE is better off.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)
Hohoho.. hahaha... "lawful"... that's funny... hihihi...
As if laws are somehow meaningful or their content objectively desirable.
You silly goblet, the law is not there for you, it's there so it can be used against you when your time comes.
(Score: 2) by Zyx Abacab on Monday June 05 2017, @07:12PM
Back in my day, kids used to say: "the law is powerless to help you, not punish you."
They also said those things semi-seriously, as if though they were quoting something with bitter sarcasm, but hey....
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @06:59PM (15 children)
I'm not a Marxist, but you have to be goddamn blind to not see the problem with 8 lives being weighted equally to 3.6 billion as the current world wealth distribution seems to suggest is correct.
Dead rich people is becoming a necessity now from crying Marx at every attempt to redress an increasingly severe systemic issue.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday June 05 2017, @07:11PM (10 children)
I like it. All of the purported disavowal of "I am not a racist", but a more subtle and understated appeal to social justice! What is not to like? A few suggested applications:
"I am not a marxist, but, it seems to me that throwing shade on workers unions is cutting your own throat! 'Right to (not) work' laws are stupid!"
"I am not a marxist, but, discriminating against people based on skin color or ethnic background has no basis in economics."
"I am not a marxist. but this coffee tastes like crap!"
Now, you try!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @07:53PM (9 children)
Oh, no see, here's the thing, fucking marxists will tell you there marxists, you goddamn idiot. They're proud-as-fuck of it. I'm not one because I don't buy into: classesless society, dialectics, any of the anarcho-whatever variants that don't account for how to maintain a stable state.
I just think we've let conservative ideologies drive social mobility and gini coefficients into the fucking ground, and even course, vile measures would improve the situation. We address the goddamn problems the can basically be described as "the people we now call republicans ever having even a sniff of power", and capitalism works just fine.
That's not marxism.
That's not socialism.
It's honeslty not even social democracy, but it's probably the closest of the 3 "leftist" ideologies you might be familiar with.
It's not "not racist but" it's "you accused me of having a political position that is not mine but I still respect a fuck ton more than yours", and it's not true.
Sorry your brokebrain ideology caused you to incorrectly identify mine.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday June 05 2017, @08:25PM (5 children)
Ah, so this is what happens when I try to show support for one of the more rational Soylentils! I am on your side, icanreed! No attribution of leftist gradualism or Bernsteinian revisionist Marxism! Trotsky all the way, bro! And viva la Che! All I am saying, is give communism a chance. But then, I am not a Marxist, and neither was Karl.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @08:31PM (2 children)
I always wonder at people like you who will burn every shred of intellectual honesty you have in order to checkmate a strawman.
You want to debate a marxist? I can direct you to several. But my experience with your kind is that you just use the term and run away when faced with someone who actually gives a fuck about marxist ideology.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday June 05 2017, @08:48PM
Chill, dude! I am not the anti-leftist you are looking for.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JNCF on Monday June 05 2017, @09:04PM
For what it's worth, I'd take aristarchus' last message at face value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:49PM (1 child)
You fucking Greek.
Speak proper Latin when talking about The Leader. Or shut up and go home!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 06 2017, @05:51PM
Latin? Look, Espanol is about my sixth or seventh language, and it seems that it is all Chinese now, anyway. 白左
http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2013/10/23/viva-la-che-johor-company-bags-rm197bil-contract/
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @08:26PM (2 children)
And there's a bed-wetting mods I've come to know and love from this site's right wing.
"Calling me on my bullshit is exactly the same as trolling right?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)
Why can't we just have a nice, polite discussion with the guy who literally wants to murder a lot of people simply because they're too successful?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:42PM
Why can't we just have a nice, polite discussion with the rabid dog?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Monday June 05 2017, @07:33PM
Clearly, and I'd ignore anyone saying otherwise. Many people here think anyone to the left of Ayn Rand and/or less racist than Richard Spencer is a Marxist.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @08:30PM (2 children)
You are going beyond the pale with this. How does the Wealth distribution matter on a global scale when discussing medical care in a single country? Apples and Oranges.
But I will bite nonetheless. Tell me, why does a goat herder in some African backwater need whatever your desired level of wealth would be? What does it matter to him that he doesn't have a 3 bedroom house with white picket fence when there is no public utilities? Why does he need 2 cars when there are no fucking roads and he doesn't need to commute anywhere? What is the ideal outcome of your Marxist redistribution of wealth?
You know he doesn't give fuck all about any of it, he just cares how many goats he has to eat/fuck and trade for his next 12 year old wife.
Men like you are definitely Marxists, but not the puppet-masters behind the curtain. You are the useful idiots that are tied to the strings. You think you know what is going on and you have great intentions, but you fail to realize the most basic reality. The currency is not the measure of Wealth. It is only a poor proxy, a simple result of the use of true Wealth by those who chose to spend their true capital. The real measure of Capital and wealth is BULLSHIT. People feed you bullshit, it fills your head, you turn around and spend some of that bullshit to others, like a well paid pawn, and you get the wheels of some shit-storm rolling. Then the person who is indeed wealthy will sit back and collect on his investment as you and your fuck up everything around you. And at the end of the day you will all be fucking poor, and the real bullshit-artists will hold all the cards.
This article is just pure, unadulterated, gluten-free, organic BULLSHIT. Bon Appétit
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 05 2017, @09:52PM (1 child)
If you're going to call someone else a troll, it would help your credibility if you did NOT go on to insinuate that Africans are backwards, goatfucking pedos.
Jut saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:46PM
Well, at least he didn't confine the backwards, goatfucking pedos to Africa. Hell, we've got our own, right here in the US. They claim some faith descended from the Mormon church. At least the Mormons have given up the goat fucking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @08:07PM (2 children)
Heh, at least the propaganda terms are becoming more erudite. "Marxist" is sure a step up from "damn reds" or "commie scum".
So you're probably an opponent of the US Revolution against Great Britain? For better or for worse violent overthrows seem to be the common method of changing society. Once a system stagnates and allows selfish greedy people to sit at the top then it is near impossible to peacefully change anything. The people at the top exert their power to prevent real change, and eventually it boils over into violence.
The only way forward is for conservatives to get with the times and get single payer healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy, and probably one or two other items. We can discuss what liberals should compromise on, but for the good of the country we need to prioritize those first two. If you want to argue either point in the slightest, then congrats you'll be keeping us on track for some violent shit.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday June 05 2017, @08:36PM (1 child)
Liberals absolutely should compromise on all of the following because they're popular but not right:
restricting GMOs,
Promoting organic farming,
uh... dumb twitter hashtags? Damn, I ran out fast.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @09:24PM
Well we never got far in restricting GMOs so that doesn't seem like a big deal.
Maybe more open to updated and properly funded safe nuclear reactors.
I'd say something along the lines of stop religious persecution, but I think that amounts to saying "Merry Christmas" and never "Happy Holidays".