Why Hospital Competition is Good
Would you rather go to a hospital that competes for patients? Or one that takes everyone that can’t get in anywhere else? This would seem to be a no-brainer, but the health reform bill will put 16 million people in Medicaid (which relies on safety-net care) and call them “insured.” Here is the experience in Dallas:
Parkland Memorial Hospital repeatedly violated the rights of people who complained about medical treatment, according to a federal report obtained by The Dallas Morning News… The patient complaints included allegations that doctors performed procedures without consent, prescribed medication that caused a heart attack and pressed a mother to disconnect her son from life support for cost reasons…
Parkland spokeswoman April Foran…said the hospital had a log indicating that the six patients had been “dealt with.”
I’m convinced. Competition is good.
I live within an hour of several hospitals and competition seems to thrive among them (if I’m not mistaken).
I know several people who (given a choice) will pass several hospitals on their way to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. For those in the armed forces, I know several people who will go the extra distance to get to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Even women about to give birth will drive further to get to the new, state of the art birthing center at the hospital in Annapolis.
It makes sense that a provider of last resort has little incentive to compete for patients since those patients have few other options.
Tom H, my doppelganger, M. Friedman once wrote that if you can change someone’s mind in a single sitting, it can be changed back just as easily. Media wins fickle friends.
I saw this Parkland article on the DMN site. It’s a real shame. It’s sort of sad, since Parkland is the last resort for so many people. But, we keep hearing some awful stuff about their service.
What would happen to these people w/o Medicaid?
Steve
“Parkland continues to face federal investigations into the ER death, massive narcotics theft by pharmacy employees, supervision of doctors in residency training and alleged billing fraud.” In addition, the article cites some examples of obvious malpractice.
Aren’t these problems endemic to big city hospitals?