Saturday, May 23, 2009

Who Could Possibly Object to Expansion of Low-Cost, Convenient Retail Health Clinics in Texas?

Texas has only about 85 of the 1,200 retail health clinics in the nation. San Antonio does not have a single one. The clinics are popular wherever they exist because nurse practitioners can treat common ailments and minor injuries with little waiting time and fees that average about $60, much less than emergency rooms. The clinics operate evenings and weekends and accept insurance plans. The clinics would represent real health care reform, especially in Texas. Most of the state, 179 counties out of 254, is classified as medically underserved. Among them are 45 metropolitan counties.

MP: Who do you suppose could possibly object to, and successfully block, the expansion of affordable, convenient retail health clinics in Texas, including in the medically underserved areas? Find out here, I am sure you can probably guess.

6 Comments:

At 5/23/2009 10:46 PM, Blogger fboness said...

Did you know that in Texas you can't get glasses made to a prescription that is more than a year old?

Now who (cough)(cough) optometrists (cough)(cough) would want that?

 
At 5/24/2009 1:13 AM, Blogger bobble said...

yeah, i agree. it's wrong and it sucks.

every economic interest is always going to try to maximize profits. that's innate in human nature.

this is where i see the libertarian philosophy failing.

this is not the public asking for "fairness" or "equality" or a government handout. this is private enterprise looking to gain competitive advantage via legislation.

how are you ever going to stop private enterprise from influencing government? every government that ever existed has been subject to this kind of bribery. not that i support that, but how do you folks think that this will ever be solved?

 
At 5/24/2009 7:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

bobble--
roll this around in your head a little longer. consider that Walgreen and CVS are private enterprise as well. I think the doc's will be sorry in the longer run that they are self-serving in the inexorable search for the villain in the health care 'crisis."

if doc's were smart as a lobby group, they would look for ways to visibly support various delivery methods that made care available to the folks. what goes around etc.

a smart move for PR reasons would be to volunteer to staff or be on call for these clinics.

same for insurance co's. do what they can to support alternative delivery systems. if they don't, BO will cram a very unpleasant medical system up their lab coat.

 
At 5/25/2009 12:52 AM, Blogger Paul Hue said...

Bobble: These private interests can only succeed if we permit governments to have enough power to do their bidding. As JimJin points out, one group benefits by having the government block free enterprise... but only at the expense of competing group. If we deny the government the right to pick a side, then these competing interests won't be able to buy government favor. Then the consumer wins.

 
At 5/25/2009 7:14 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"San Antonio does not have a single one"...

Interestingly I don't believe that St. Louis county in Missouri has any of these 'retail health clinics' either...

I was looking for one over this past weekend and no joy...

 
At 5/26/2009 10:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Uhh....I live in San Antonio, and there ARE retail medical clinics here. I've USED them and so has my wife.......where did this article come from??????

 

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