Craig M. Wax is a family physician.
In the history of medical care, medical records served one purpose and two masters: to record diagnosis and treatment for physicians to refer to and for patients to use to transfer care when they desired. The medical record was a simple 3 x 5 or ledger card in the 1950s. The patient paid directly for care at the time of service. Usually, the physician had a nurse and a spouse …
The federal government has been trying to control the health of citizens for nearly a century, increasingly separating patients and their physicians.
WWII wage controls firmly established health insurance as an employee “benefit” in lieu of salary. This gave the employer power to choose coverage based on its needs, not the employee’s: the first degree of separation.
Since WWII, government has imposed a multitude of programs that add degrees of separation: Medicare, …
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