Residents Must Pressure Elected Officials to Rein in Corporate Medicine
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
What do you do when you can’t get a timely appointment with your doctor, you receive a surprise medical bill or your insurance company denies care or medicine prescribed by your doctor? Maybe you waste hours navigating phone menu options or you try to reach your doctor through some ever-changing online portal. Or maybe you just give up.
As Adam Stone has illustrated in his series on the problematic practices of Optum and its parent company, United Healthcare, we now live in the age of corporate medicine. Insurance companies, medical practices and hospitals are owned by large corporations and other capital investors whose main concern is profit, not patients. It doesn’t seem to be working for anyone other than the CEOs and shareholders.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are legislative fixes for this sad state of affairs, both at the federal and state level. But our legislators don’t seem to be aware of the extent of these problems. Most people don’t consider calling their elected officials when they encounter a problem accessing healthcare. Yet these are precisely the people who need to hear about it. Sometimes their staff can help troubleshoot difficult situations. Regardless, we should demand that they take action to address the corporate profiteering taking place at the expense of patient care.
Whether you are a medical professional or a patient, when you encounter a wall of corporate bureaucracy that impedes good healthcare, call Congressman Mike Lawler, Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg and state Sen. Peter Harckham and U.S. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. Let them know that we deserve better.
Celeste Theis
Croton-on-Hudson
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