Why Heidi Standish Couldn't Find a Pediatrician: The Television Warranty Effect

The Complete Patient ^ | May 17, 2007 | David Gumpert

[davidgumpert]

In a sense, the health insurance provider is like WalMart or Best Buy. When you buy your television (take a job), you get a warranty with it (health insurance option), maybe even an extended warranty for some additional fee. If something goes wrong with the TV during the warranty period, you are given a list of small retailers or service centers to take it to for repair. The manufacturer pays those small retailers and service centers a fee to repair your TV, but at a much lower rate than you would pay if you went direct, without a warranty.

At one time, maybe thirty or forty years ago, those small retailers were the businesses you actually bought the television from. But they got squeezed out by the big guys. Now, the big guys sell everything, and subcontract out to the little guys to do the service.

The health insurance companies are like the big retailers. They’ve squeezed the original small medical service retailers, the doctors, out of the retailing picture, and turned them into warranty service providers.

Now, one little detail: If you do something to the TV that’s not provided in the warranty, say use a banned remote control device or remove a component, the small service provider may refuse to provide the service, claiming you violated the warranty. You can go to some out-of-network repair facility, but you'll have to pay for the repair yourself.

That’s a little like what happened to Heidi Standish, a Ft. Lauderdale mother of two young girls, in late 2005 and early 2006, as she launched into a search for a pediatrician.

[davidgumpert]

This is the story of one mother's demoralizing encounter with the medical profession while seeking a pediatrician to take care of her two young daughters.

[Lancey Howard]

Another great example of what results when scumbag government gets involved in something, in this case health care insurance. The medicaid and medicare programs set in motion the destructive escalation in health-care costs we see today. (Of course, the scumbag “jackpot justice” lawyers have a lot to do with it, too.)

[mimaw]

This sounds to me like a mother that thinks she knows more than doctors.

[the invisib1e hand]

well now, it does seem that the problem is caused by the institutionalization of a business that ought to be individual and personal in its orientation; and that the financial beneficiaries of this practice are private entities.

Perhaps the government enabled this situation with foolhardy legislation the fault of which is more likely associated with the meeting of derelict politicians and private interest groups such as the insurance lobby and the ama using government to restric competition.

[the invisib1e hand]

This sounds to me like a mother that thinks she knows more than doctors.

Or perhaps cares more about her children than doctors do.

[mimaw]

Who is David Gumpurt. Whats his racket.

[USMCWife6869]

From the blog, it looks like he is seriously anti-vaccination.

[bert]

Heidi is a borderline flake. The warrenty metaphor fall apart when the user is incompetant and perhaps even stupid.

[davidgumpert]

I’m a journalist who reports on the business of healthcare. If you read what I’ve written, you’ll see that I’m not “seriously anti-vaccination.” Take a look at this:
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2007/5/15/instead-of-stiffening-their-defenses-why-dont-the-authorities-try-to-figure-out-the-vaccine-problem.html