June 29, 2011
Doctors in the United States have enormous political power. They use it to limit the supply of doctors domestically both by restricting medical school enrollment and the number of foreign doctors who can enter the country. As a result of these protectionist measures, the United States pays more than twice as much for its doctors as other wealthy countries, costing it more than $90 billion a year.
The NYT reported on the successful effort by the doctors’ lobby to stop the use of government testers to determine the ability of people with different types of insurance to get appointments. The plan was to have people call doctors’ offices and ask for an appointment saying that they have various types of insurance (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance). This would provide a basis for determining how easy it is for people get care.
The article should have pointed out that this use of anonymous testers is absolutely standard. It has been used to uncover discrimination in the issuing of loans by banks, in selling cars, and offering jobs. It would be irresponsible for the government to be spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on programs like Medicare and Medicaid without knowing how effective they are in providing care.
Therefore when Senator Orin Hatch complained that the administration was “wasting taxpayer dollars to snoop into the care physicians are providing their patients”, he was not saying anything that made sense. Presumably he was doing the bidding of the doctors’ lobby.
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