“The American healthcare system is rigged against you,” journalist Elisabeth Rosenthalwrites in her new book, An American Sickness.
Rosenthal got a behind-the-scenes peek at the bamboozling when she was working full time as a doctor in the 1990s. She remembers one appendectomy patient, already in a hospital gown, pleading, “You guys [already] took my wallet … I don't have a credit card.” The hospital was hassling the patient for a credit card number before continuing with the procedure, and the patient had to scramble to recover a card number from a friend before the operation could begin. It was clear to Rosenthal that profit came way ahead of patient care.
