And ER *is* the "Doctor's Office" for many.
Many of our vaunted physicians just can't treat patients for the lowly sums they are awarded by Medicaid. Many poor and working poor people take their children to the ER for ear aches because the frickin' physician class *refuses* to see their kids once they find out they're on Medicaid.
That could be fixed immediately, of course, if a federal law stated that a physician loses his license lifetime for refusing to treat a patient because of a patient's inability to pay him/her on a scale that allows them to maintain their beach house in CA or FL, the ski chalet in Aspen their kids private schools, their club memberships, etc. But that would be a sea change - no longer would it be the case that one pursued an MD to make a few million; the motivation would be to actually help people. For vast majority in that field, that would be completely intolerable.
bcnu,
Mikem
It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
