From my experience ( anecdotal) the people who are needy are also the people you want to avoid as a health care provider. They are poor for a reason, due to drugs and other poor life choices. They tend to be high maintanence and demanding patients. It was rare to see a truly deserving poor patient. I remember those patients.
The only way to drop the price of health care is to stop all the regulations. Hospitals are so top heavy because they have to hire people to comply with the ever expanding regulations.
I recently had to sit through a mandatory inservice on fat shaming. Yup, doctors and nurses can no longer tell patients they need to lose weight. It might make the patient upset, they write poor performance evaluations on the hospital, and the hospital gets less reimbursement. That is also why you are seeing health care costs explode. No one wants to say NO to a patient- be it pain pills, antibiotics or an MRI.
Thank you for your perspective. Your remarks are very telling. You are correct that hospitals put a huge emphasis on giving “care” that will win “excellent” ratings on the patient feedback surveys.
Also, from my own limited experience and observation, many are pressured to “up sell” for more and more treatments and tests (sore back = referral to spine surgeon; slow adjustment to new glasses prescription = referral to ophthalmologist surgeon; bad heartburn one episode only = referral for battery of GI tests.... and so on). I realize some of this is due to fears of malpractice accusations and lawsuits, but also I think some of it is to keep people trapped in a long-term diagnosis and treatment program, which may be really unnecessary.
Just my thoughts.