Letter to the editor:

Medical care today is a different world

Bob Abbott, Las Vegas

Fri, Mar 14, 2008 (2:02 a.m.)

When growing up in the Midwest in the 1930s and ’40s, the doctors in our town would charge $2 per office call and $3 for a house call. They were available at all hours, 24/7.

The doctors lived in the most beautiful homes in the area and drove the latest and nicest cars. Our family doctor also owned two farms in the area that grew sugar beets and corn. All doctors were very well respected and dressed accordingly, either at work or at play. Some doctors now charge $150 per office call for a visit that usually lasts just 20 to 30 minutes, because many patients are waiting.

Technologies that assist doctors in helping their patients have drastically changed over the past 50 to 60 years. But why the tremendous increase in cost for doctor’s office visits? It appears that several doctors are still not content with their profits, so they reuse syringes and put the public at risk for various diseases. Just what is the reason? Greed.

One other note regarding hospitals: In the ’30s and ’40s you could tell a nurse by the way she wore her cap and uniform. Nowadays you cannot tell nurses from the janitors by the way they are dressed.

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

By AgMallard

3/14/08 at 10:47 a.m.

Suggest removal

First off you live here now. If I had a dime for every transplanted Midwesterner that pines for the good old days back home I could afford to receive all my medical services at the Mayo Clinic in the good old Midwest. Second you referred to a period in US health care history that predates both Medicare and wide scale employer sponsored health insurance. The addition of health insurance is the primary driver of inflated costs of obtaining health care services. It is not news that physicians respond to economic forces. Finally nursed have come a long way from the days when they dressed in crisp white uniforms and caps and were merely the physician’s hand maiden.
By skipsdog

3/15/08 at 3:53 p.m.

Suggest removal

FIRST OF All - "AG"...I'll gladly give you my dime. Health care IS better in the eastern U.S.
Medical facilities there are inspected by regulators more often than HERE. Unlike HERE, there are more important issues than gambling tourists. I recently spent 2 1/2 days in an emergency room because no rooms were available. I wonder how fast LV health care would improve if the tourism industry was affected. LV would dry up in a month if the news really got out how bad it really is.