Government Not Needed To Provide Medical Care To The Uninsured: Of Course, Affected Competitors Want Them Out

Posted by Milton Recht:

From The New York Times, "As ‘Bodega Clinicas’ Fill Void, Officials Are Torn on Embracing Them" by Sarah Varney:

The "bodega clinicas" that line the bustling commercial streets of immigrant neighborhoods around Los Angeles are wedged between money order kiosks and pawnshops. These storefront offices, staffed with Spanish-speaking medical providers, treat ailments for cash: a doctor’s visit is $20 to $40; a cardiology exam is $120; and at one bustling clinic, a colonoscopy is advertised on an erasable board for $700.

County health officials describe the clinics as a parallel health care system, serving a vast number of uninsured Latino residents.***"Someone has to figure out if there’s a basic level of competence," said Dr. Patrick Dowling, the chairman of the family medicine department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.***many of these clinics are actually private doctor’s offices, not licensed clinics, which are required to report regularly to federal and state oversight bodies.

It is a distinction that deeply concerns Kimberly Wyard, the chief executive of the Northeast Valley Health Corporation, a nonprofit group that runs 13 accredited health clinics for low-income Southern Californians. "They are off the radar screen," said Ms. Wyard of the bodega clinicas, "and it’s unclear what they’re doing."