Liberal free for all coming to an end

[smc]

Originally Posted by Tread

Oh, come on. According to their website http://www.mdvip.com/ they were founded in 2000, and they list almost 400 doctors in the whole US (I counted).
What do you want to say?

BTW: What does the abbreviation MDVIP stands for? I can?t find it.

Any doctor who decides to join MDVIP is doing so for his or her own reasons, not because he or she is driven there by the Obama healthcare reform.

MDVIP (it means "Medical Doctors for Very Important Persons") is a money-making venture begun by some doctors who want to make more money by offering boutique, personalized services to those who can afford it. It is the antithesis of the kind of healthcare we should have in this country. Notably, Procter & Gamble -- the giant consumer products company -- bought this company fully in early 2010, expanding its minority stake to full ownership.

I spoke with two Harvard Medical School professors I know before writing this response. Here's a synopsis of how they both described MDVIP.

- This is another step in the misdirection of "managed care," designed to make more money doing less.

- The criteria for being a doctor in the MDVIP network is that you have to cut your practice to about 600 patients maximum (the current primary-care doctor in an urban area has 2,000 to 3,000 patients). The criteria for being a patient of such a doctor is your personal level of wealth and disposable income to pay for "care" beyond your insurance. The doctor will still collect from your insurance company; he or she just wants you to pay extra for the "privilege" of seeing him or her quickly.

- The focus is on "preventive" care, which should be the focus of the healthcare system as a whole.

- One of my colleagues said, "Welcome to the medical world's version of a country club."

Tracy Coxx, you really ought to take a deep breath before jumping to the conclusion that everything you dislike in the world can be traced to Obama, Pelosi, Democrats, and so on. The business model for a company like MDVIP precedes the healthcare debate and legislation of the last year by a long time; doctors have been trying to figure out ways to create these boutiques as sustainable ventures for many years.