Burst appendix, single-payer style

Throw in the looming 10% medicare cut and I have first hand knowledge of physicians in my community, primary care doctors, who currently don’t accept new medicare patients, and who are on the verge of dropping out all together.

You want to talk about an access problem, we are already here. I HOPE the medicare cuts go through. Only then will the massive efflux come to fruition. Everything for free is collapsing on its own weight. There must be a national priority to save primary care and the access crises already here. For those who say it doesn’t exist, consider yourself lucky. It’s coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

http://thehappyhospitalist.blogspot.com/

That reminds me of the story of David Rosenbaum the NYT journalist who was mugged in his Washington DC neighborhood and ended up being taken across town to a very busy far away ER where they thought he was a drunk, ignored signs of his head wound and he died. Had he gone to the hospital in his neighborhood he might still have died from his beating, but he probably wouldn’t have laid around in the hallway for hours.

The ambulance getting lost probably wasn’t the sole cause of this complication, he needed a local surgeon, but it does point out that a system is only as good as the weakest link.