I should be more clear. This $10,000 includes the cost for "conceirge" medical coverage. For those not familiar with it, many doctors in private practice can no longer make ends meet because of increasing insurance costs, decreasing payments from government programs and private insurers, and because of other increasing costs, such as medical equipment. Therefore, many of them now charge several thousand dollars a year to each of their patients. They can make their money on this fee, much like Costco makes the bulk of their profit from the membership fees.
Our doctor, like many others, went to this form of medicine shortly after the new health care law took effect, just so she could stay in practice. The nasty kicker is that most docs who do this dramatically reduce the number of patients they see so that they can provide better service in return for the considerable fee: I can see my doc 24/4, if needed, and get in on pretty much any day. As a result, my doc went from about 1,600 patients to fewer than 800. Those 800 patients were left without a doctor resulting in the bitter irony that the health care act that was aimed primarily at covering millions of patients who had no medical insurance, actually cost almost that same number the ability to see their long-time doctors.
I'm guessing that if you include these poor souls, the same total number of people are covered as before. My daughter is a doctor, working in a big-city hospital, and just as many uninsured poor people show up at the emergency room for routine health care as before (this is the way around not having insurance).
So some of that $10,000 I'm paying is the concierge service, and the remainder is for the Medicare supplemental; drug supplemental fee; and one other small supplemental.
