American Medical: Where You Die Because A Hedge Fund Buys Out A Hospital You'll Never Go To

I WAS TALKING today to a 69 year old man I know who was told earlier this month that he will need a biopsy on something which showed up in an MRI but who cannot get one scheduled at the hospital his insurance will cover BECAUSE THE BIG-NAME HOSPITAL IT IS ASSOCIATED WITH TWO STATES AWAY IS UNDERGOING A BUSINESS SHAKE UP - I repeat that, two states away from where we live.  

It seems a group of hedge funds is buying that big-name institution and all of the doctors specializing in that particular part of the human anatomy have, suddenly, left hospital he has to go to.

The American medical industry is a total mess, perhaps even as big a mess as it was in before the Affordable Care Act was supposed to reform it because of its attachment to for-profit investing.  I remember listening to Obama touting how the ACA was going to make everything better and I was skeptical then.  As I recall it was his absurd faith in computer technology that was the thing I was most skeptical of, something which has certainly not made things seamless and as easy as clicking on a key.   

I also remember the scare stories about surgeries being delayed in Canada under its National Healthcare system, something which, even then, for those without a lot of money, was the reality in the United States.  There are certainly problems in the Canadian system, most of those I'm aware of come from allowing the different provinces to have different practices - I am ever more skeptical of federalism even as I'm aware of the problems of national governments.  But the fragmentation and ever-shifting profit-driven American system is a total disaster.

It's very possible that this might end up costing the man his life depending on what the biopsy shows.  God only knows if it's serious how long it will take for treatment to start and how long he'll be able to afford that.

The ACA would certainly have been better if the Roberts Court hadn't seriously weakened it but it was no last step in making medical care available to all on an equal basis.  Nothing like that will happen as long as hospitals, clinics, individual doctors are so tied in with the profit system.  And it's costing us lives, right now, even after the ACA has been in place.  We need to get the investors out of the medical business and that's only one area of life we need to do that in.