Markets in everything: Market-based alternatives to Obamacare

From Mark Perry.

"1. Concierge Medicine (as reported by WAAY-TV in Decatur, AL):

With the Affordable Care Act in full swing, there’s a growing trend across the nation that’s changing the way patients get treatment. And now concierge medicine is being offered at The Heartbeat Away Clinic in Decatur, Alabama. “What I’m doing is unprecedented” said Nurse Practitioner Kimberly Samuel. “I’m not accepting any insurance whatsoever.”

“I’m doing a concierge type medicine where people pay a monthly amount. It’s a very minimum amount and I’ll see them as often as they would like to be seen” said Samuel. Samuel charges a monthly or yearly membership fee that starts at $50 for an individual and $100 for a family of 4. The fee includes appointments or walk-ins for reduced wait times, 24 hour access by phone or email, and 45 minutes for each visit. The fee also includes a wellness panel with blood work.

Two weeks ago, Samuel opened the clinic to cater to those who don’t have insurance after researching the growing trend of concierge medicine in larger cities. By eliminating the cost of billing insurance companies, Samuel can cut overhead expenses up to 40 percent and transfer the savings to her patients.

A growing number of doctors are going the concierge route due to what some call a costly amount of insurance regulations and red tape in Obamacare. Samuel said cutting out the middleman allows her to focus more on her patients.

2. Oklahoma Doctor Making a Run Around Obamacare (as reported by Watchdog.org):

About a year before the birth of Obamacare, Dr. Keith Smith, director of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, posted all the prices for his center’s surgeries online. Today, he’s in expansion mode, looking to build two more operating rooms. His fastest-growing group of patients? Obamacare enrollees.

Though armed with Obamacare health insurance plans, the patients are saddled with high deductibles. Looking for alternatives, some of them fly from around the country to the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, where the cost of care and travel together amounts to less than their deductibles under their Affordable Care Act plans.

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is a physician-owned operation that does not take Medicare or Medicaid and only selectively works with private insurance plans. Patients pay in cash or with cashier’s checks.

“Even if someone has this (Obamacare) insurance card in their pocket, they are soon going to find out that it’s worthless,” Smith said, citing both higher prices and doctor shortages under Obamacare. “Coverage doesn’t mean care.” As proof, he points to the fact that among his first waves of patients to the center were Canadians, who though covered under their country’s socialized health care system, found themselves in the back of a long line of patients in desperate need of care.

Smith and others argue Obamacare is moving America even farther away from the real solution to its health care woes. What’s needed, they say, is a free-market model in which Americans are not just patients, but health care consumers.

MP: Look for more of these types of market-based health care solutions as patients look for alternatives to government-managed Obamacare."