I used to go to the dentist for annual check ups. Now I have been since 2021. That kind of thing has become a luxury that “one day I’ll have money for it again”.
Medicare used to be a point of pride for us as a nation, now it’s more of an embarrassment. We’re making fantastic progress on our path to becoming America Junior.
IMO there needs to be some regulation around this, a simple measure would be to tie Medicare payments to a pricing structure(eg. a specialist can only charge the Medicare rebate + 20%).
If a specialist wants to charge more then that’s fine but the patient(or insurance) will have to pay the full cost
I second this, but make it +0% or else 100% private.
Honestly, we need most medicos to be employees (of the government), and they can start a union to keep conditions and pay appropriate.
Our subsidy system is just funneling money into practice owner’s pockets, who set prices based on supply and demand, which is a fucked way to run a healthcare system.
Let’s just pay the average medico more, while skipping all the profits were subsidising.
