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posted by Fnord666 on Monday June 05 2017, @04:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-take-it-with-you dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @08:30PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @08:30PM (#520963)

    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

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 05 2017, @09:52PM (1 child)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Monday June 05 2017, @09:52PM (#521005) Journal

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:46PM (#522671)

      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.