The invisible hand of the marketplace gives us the finger We suspect that Frank has pink-eye. Last time we suspected it, we went to the doctor, paid a $12 co-pay for the doctor to tell us that they didn't test for it but just gave out antibiotics (even though it could have been viral pink-eye). I think it was another $12 co-pay for the prescription. This time, instead of paying for a visit, we chose to wait and see if it went away by itself. We had some of the antibiotics left over from last year so we applied that in a haphazard way. In the meantime, we took Frank to all kinds of places where he could have transmitted pink-eye. It seems to have gone away, but it occured to me that these decisions are being made over and over again across the population. If the kid is sick, wait to see if he gets worse. Save $25 bucks or even $150 off of a doctors visit. Who cares if he might infect other people. Other people getting sick doesn't affect our bottom line, so why should it enter into the calculation?
If I get a staph infection, I'm not going to know what it is without a test. If that test is going to cost me $15 (which it will next year when our new contract goes into effect), I am going to wait and see if it goes away by itself. In the meantime, I will go to the YMCA and rub that staph infected leg all over some exercise mats. Then, with the $15 I saved, I will go to see Bad Santa and my leg will itch something fierce, so I will reach down under my sock and scratch. Ahhh. Then I will touch the arm on my chair. And I will visit the bathroom where my leg will touch the toilet seat. Then, two days later, when my leg is bright red and 6 degrees hotter than the rest of my body and there are red streaks going up towards my femoral artery, I will go to the emergency room, where there is also a $15 co-pay, but the visit will cost the medical system closer to $500 instead of the $150 office visit.
The thing we hear about health care in Canada and other places that are afflicted with health care programs that cover everyone at 1/3 of the cost of our system is that they have to wait a long time to get seen. Would this be true for a staph infection? Here, I had to wait a few months to get a colonoscopy, but can get seen the same day for something like pink-eye or a staph infection (not that I had one of those.) I can't imagine that Canada would make someone with an infectious disease wait a long time. Are there still SARS patients waiting to be seen?
10:56:00 AM 
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