Doctors are refusing to operate on smokers. Here’s why the trend will grow

I had a surgery here in which I was obligated to sign a declaration that I did not, and would not, smoke before surgery or during recovery. They said I would not heal properly if I did, and they would not do it otherwise. Luckily I was in a non smoker phase of life at the time.

a reply to: SRPrime

This is called lack of regulation. This is also why a MRI that costs 350$ in other industrialized countries still cost $2,500 in the land of the free.

If allowed to stand, better hope you meet the surgical criteria, if not too risky (profit prohibitive). And make no mistake that is where this is headed.

a reply to: seasonal

Depends where you go and how you pay. You can get a cheap MRI in the US. Much of it is due to unpaid medical care that gets passed on to paying customers.

I'm not paying 500 a month for health insurance, 80 dollar co pays and 250 dollar emergency room copays, to be turned away down the road because I have a bad habit.

But they'll stab narcan into all my friends and family as many times as they need it huh?

Get Bent. (Not you)

-Alee

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

There is also the secretive undercurrent of $$$ kickbacks to referring physicians. Doctor refers you to a hospital for a $4500 CAT scan. He gets at least several hundred dollars for sending you there. At the "Open MRI" center down the street, the same CAT scan is only $750.

People with higher-deductible health plans will FIND that $750 center. Those with "Cadillac" plans at work, don't give a hoot.

All of this stinks of NWO full control. We will tell you what to eat, what you can and can not do, what is good for you what is bad etc. I remember Obama saying we can change people to what we want them to be by just making anything we do not desire them to do either cost prohibitive or just not accessible.

We can make everyone drive electric cars or ride bikes, live in very small living quarters, eat and drink only foods we deem healthy, no smoking,drinking or drugs. Minimize everyone's carbon foot prints down to almost nothing etc all by just making any other option too expensive with taxes fines etc or just not available. Well only available to the rich....

Until you introduce Tort reform, this is going to get worse.

People assume any MD is instantly making $$$$$$. That may have been the case when Quincy was in vogue. Most have student loans that run 300-400K and enter into practice with this crippling debt

Why would I jeopardize my practice in these litigious times knowing I'm adding undue risk?

a reply to: FredT

In some cases tort reform puts the people who were hurt onto the public doles. This means that the Dr. who is responsible only pays a minimum and then the injured person goes on to the public social services for help.

a reply to: carewemust

It's a complicated situation, but I find a lot of valid reasons for a Dr. to say no if a patient refuses to stop smoking for 6 months.

The insane tax slapped on the price of cigarettes doesn't seem to bother non-smokers.

Don't suppose people care that smokers are essetially exploited. Exploiting and heavily taxing serious and often life-threatening addictions is great for non-smokers.

I recently quit smoking and am gald I did, it's great. Still, I realise that if every smoker in the UK were to quit, they'd simply rob that revenue some other way. There are other addictions to exploit.

they should legalise other addictive substances and heavily tax them, I say. Slap a crazy tax on fast food and reap the benefits of obese comfort eaters...they won't ever stop grubbing!

a reply to: seasonal

You are absolutely right, mi amigo

Hospitals, especially the smaller ones right now, are losing money hand-over-foot. Where I work, some of the uninsured get surgery, because the entitlements pay a 'portion' of it (a small portion, which may not be 'profitable', but it is more than zero and can help keep a failing hospital limping along a little longer). There are other patients for whom nobody pays anything, but some of them do indeed still receive surgery, just not elective surgery. The problem with the complexly uninsured or completely non-paid-for patient is that the other 'paying' patients are charged multiple times more their own true costs to keep the hospital from going completely underwater, which isn't fair either.

Hospitals without money close down. So yeah, you are right, it is all about $$$. But ... for a good number of hospitals, $$$ is survival!

Right now the smallest hospitals are suffering the most, and when a small hospital closes in one location (more often rural), those patients in their old area - paying and non-paying - must travel to a bigger hospital, usually in a more metropolitan area. Since fewer patients really want to travel, the insurance actuarial tables probably show somewhere that this is profitable, as it is a way to 'deny care by distance' for many but the most life-threatening healthcare issues. That last part is my own speculation.

None of the healthcare system in the United States right now is operated very fairly or efficiently. It seems like a slow motion train wreck in progress.

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

It will be corrected or it will collapse.

a reply to: seasonal

And you guys want to repeal Obamacare. Lol. Stuff like this will only get worse without it.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: seasonal

And you guys want to repeal Obamacare. Lol. Stuff like this will only get worse without it.

Obamacare made this a huge problem at my hospital when it was not before.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Actually advances in modern science over the last so many years has made this a problem, but regardless of where the problem's origins truly lie, if you take away Obamacare things won't go back to how they were before. Insurance companies will just refuse to cover you, or you'll pay a rate MUCH MUCH MUCH higher than you are now.

a reply to: seasonal

You are right, and I might chime in that I think it 'must' collapse in order to get fixed. I don't think they will fix it first, because everyone will be too busy squabbling to do anything to prevent a collapse, which without a fix becomes unavoidable

I do not expect to retire at 65 from my current job ... which is kind of dark thinking, but I don't see how collapse can be avoided for much longer.

I foresee a two-tiered healthcare system, with self paying folks getting what they want/need (read: top 1%) ... and everyone else getting over-regulated scraps through insurance or government programs. Maybe just government programs, the way it is going .... *shrug*

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Say that to some one who makes too much to get a subsidy and not enough to afford another mortgage payment for med insurance and huge deductibles.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

That is an opinion, right? Or do you have a source?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You have forgotten that Obamacare REQUIRES you to pay high premiums and prevents people from seeking much much cheaper procedures in foreign countries

a reply to: Fowlerstoad

Did high medical costs make the need for insurance or did insurance make for high medical costs?