Patients who pay for services out of their own pockets will make more considered and thoughtful choices, weighing the need for treatment against costs. A peculiar irony of this Medicare restriction is that foreign seniors who travel to the U.S. to obtain health care enjoy more freedom of choice than our own seniors. Doctors who would not dare contract with American seniors may treat without restriction non-citizens paying privately. Even the much-maligned British health care system is less restrictive than Medicare when it comes to private contracting. Seniors will be allowed to purchase medical services on their own only if they sacrifice their right to medical privacy.
Seniors deserve better.
So far, none of this has been deemed newsworthy by the American media. Naomi Lopez is a research associate at the Institute for SocioEconomic Studies in White Plains, New York.