I keep hearing that the medical system is racist because black people supposedly not getting good medical care. I wanted to relate my experience and the conclusions I have come to. I am white. I was in a bad accident and in hospital for ten days. I did not have medical insurance, but the cost would be covered by the offending driver's auto insurance. I feel that the care I received while in hospital and afterward was substandard, and that absolutely nothing was done for me that was not ABSOLUTELY crucial, even though I assured them repeatedly that they would get paid, which they did. I believe this is not a racial problem (as I said, I'm white), but a snobbishness and greed problem. They don't like poor people, and they consider those who have no insurance poor and undeserving of care. I think it may be racial only in the way that they probably see a lot of black people come in without insurance, so think black = no insurance. Or the greed comes in, in that if someone is paying with Medicare or Medicaid, they know they aren't going to get paid as much. I also have come to believe that it isn't entirely a money issue, but that they consider it disrespect to them, that you don't consider them getting paid as the most important thing in your life, more important than feeding your family and paying your rent. Not racial (mostly), but a problem.
Sorry to hear about your accident and glad you were able to have your medical bills covered by the other person's insurance. While I understand your point, the concerns about racism within the medical community exists outside the patient's ability to self-pay for services.
there could be some racist white and some racist black doctors that only like working with their own race, only care about their own race, but I doubt that is widespread more likely to happen is the patient perceives a bad doctor as racists if they are not their own race
Exactly. It’s all about getting paid and what is covered. Treatments go through protocol as much as the patient does. If a treatment isn’t covered, you probably won’t get it.
Btw, I don’t know what it’s like where you get your treatment but, a high percentage of healthcare providers including doctors are foreign nationals. If there is any racism or color bias, it’s most often skewed to the color green.
Sorry to hear about you accident and all I can say is next election vote for the guy offering to introduce a UHC
Well, I guess we need to pass a bunch of laws that force doctors and nurses and hospital personnel to be nice. Perhaps the punishment should be 2 years prison time and a $1,000 fine for being surly to a patient. And if a patient perceives a doctor or nurse to be racist, maybe that would be a 10 year prison sentence and a $100,000 fine. If a doctor's office reschedules an appointment, I would suggest that an equitable punishment would be a 20 year prison term for all employees of the office, plus the confiscation of all their wealth and that should be given to the victim. Here's an alternate solution... when you get an appointment with a doctor, you should have the doctor's office personnel sign a contract stating the time, and have liquidated damages in the contract. I'd start out at $10,000 if the appointment cannot be kept. Ridiculous? Of course. So what suggestions/punishments do those who have suffered such severe depredations propose? After all, shouldn't doctors be forced by law to be nice? Surely we need a much more authoritative government that could stop such evil acts from occurring. Surely? Any better proposals? Find a new doctor if you aren't satisfied? I just don't know. But I do know that first world problems are a real bitch.
That's normal. Many hospitals are not going to treat you with the nicest standard of care, or may be resentful about doing it, if they are not sure they are going to get paid. That's not how it's "supposed to be" of course, but is the way the system can operate in real-life. It is a form of discrimination, and the statistics bear them out on this. Statistically, most of the non-payers they have don't have insurance.
