Is not there danger that doctors will seek unnecessary surgeries, if they stand to profit by having those surgeries? I suggest, this is a danger -- a definite danger. If a doctor makes his money off having surgeries, and the more he has, the more he makes, yes, there is going to be an incentive to rationalize that patients need surgeries when perhaps they don't.
Indeed, if a doctor -- say, a cardiologist -- makes money off regular office visits, then it is to his financial benefit to keep patients even though they might recover. You might argue that doctors don't do that, they don't keep patients coming back long after they have healed. You might argue that the insurance companies prevent it, by having standards that must be met before doctors can run stress tests, or whatever the test might be.
And, you might also argue that even though a person has healed, doctors should bring them back a couple years later to ensure there is no relapse. I would agree on that point. We need to have more check ups, not fewer.
I think of a dental procedure I had, and how there were two post ops, not one, and of how I called in to cancel the second, not wanting an unnecessary x-ray, and of how they talked me in to keeping the appointment, saying it was free and could be minus the x-ray. I wondered if it was free, as in it was covered by what I had already paid, or free as in no out-of-pocket since the insurance company would cover it. If the insurance was covering it, there was still an expense.
What about medications? Are we left on medications sometimes after the need has ended? If the pharmaceutical industry profits more when it sells more, isn't there incentive to keep you on drugs, or to sells drugs when they perhaps aren't necessary?
The profit factor also plays on the other end. Not only can it lead to too much treatment, it can lead to not enough. If a patient has a medical problem, but has no way to pay for it, the incentive for the medical practitioner is to find reason not to give the treatment. Sometimes, whether you have a procedure comes down to whether or not you have insurance.
These are things we need to correct in our medical system. Whether we tweak our process while remaining in a capitalistic system, or switch to a socialistic system, we should fix what is broken. And, we should be open-minded enough to at least consider whether the problems would be rooted out if we swung to a more socialistic system. We should consider both the benefits and problems of moving more socialistic.
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