Editorial, Bennington Banner
The severe shortage of primary care doctors in the Bennington area,
which is not unlike most areas of the region, and probably the nation,
illustrates the warped nature of health care in the United States.
The warp in the system stems directly from the for-profit nature of much
of what we have for health care and health care insurance. It is
understandable, given the profit motive we’ve allowed to overrun health
care here, and attempts to control the runaway costs of care, that fewer
doctors would stay with primary care, preferring to move into a more
lucrative specialty area if they can. Otherwise, they find themselves
working longer and longer hours and being paid less than those who find
a financially lucrative niche.
In addition, primary care medical practices are pressured mercilessly by
the demands of private insurers to cut costs and reduce benefits. Health
care becomes a grueling game of get-em-in, get-em-out of the doctor’s
office, and of only ordering tests when absolutely unavoidable.
The required paperwork alone in dealing with private insurers bent on
reducing costs by reducing or denying claims, sometimes through
frustrating denials of coverage that must be fought and overturned
through long hours on the phone and more paperwork, is enough to
overwhelm primary care doctors and small group practices. They become
like the corner store competing against Walmart.
It’s no surprise then that the non-profit Bennington Free Clinic, which
opened in town in 2009, has seen a spike in people who have been unable
to find a primary care physician locally with a patient opening. As more
longtime physicians retire or decide they can no longer practice
medicine in a patient-last manner, the problem becomes ever more acute.
The only solution, it seems, is to turn to the government, whether state
or local, and to grants and donations of time and money, to provide this
basic service to many. Their number is growing daily.
If a single-payer, government-operated health care and insurance system
would have its flaws, they are nothing compared to leaving so much of
our system — unlike most other industrialized nations — in the hands
of bean counters seeking profit. After millions were spent on propaganda
and lobbying to convince lawmakers and gullible Americans that a
for-profit system is somehow better, even the recently enacted health
care bill fell far short of where it needs to go to effect reform.
Too many Americans and too many lawmakers afraid of opponents funded
heavily by for-profit health care giants and insurers continue to
believe that the current system is superior to a single-payer system
like Medicare.
For those making big bucks off services that should be available to all
regardless of income and reasonably priced for all, what we have now is
better — it protects their sometimes obscene profit margin.
What is happening at the Free Clinic should be a sign and a call to
action toward further reform, in this state and nationally.