Reply #3: If I had Blue Cross [View All]

[Warpy]

...it would cost me slightly less than $700/month. Certainly that concierge fee must be higher, or must not include the costs of drugs, hospital stays, tests, Xrays, and the rest.

I guess that $1800/year provides the rich hypochondriac's dream, constant access to a trained physician who will schedule any test he can think of every time Mr. Rich's liver hiccups from too many martinis.

If a doctor wants a private practice dealing with whiny, unhappy, rich alcoholics, more power to him. Somebody has to do it, I suppose, and it will be providing a service to the rest of us in health care if the old drunk has somebody else to pester, somebody who can't be complained about for ducking the calls. For his part, the doctor gets maybe 100 patients in a practice in Palm Springs, maybe 5% of the average case load, and gets to work on his golf while he contemplates early retirement and takes the cell phone calls.

As a precedent, of course, it sucks. In practice, it might just take some of the burden off the larger health care system, as the hypochondriac rich are shuttled off to clinics for testing rather than put into the hospital as an inpatient. Gawd knows I'd like to see fewer of them when I go to work.