Rite Aid Drug Stores Offer Virtual Doc Visits 138
Lucas123 writes "Rite Aid today announced it is offering virtual face-to-face physician consultations through an in-store kiosk. The virtual consultation services are currently being tested in the Detroit area, but the company expects they will do well and the virtual consults will expand to other regions. The service costs $45 for a 10-minute physician consultation. Consultations with nurses are free."
healthcare's a rip-off (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is healthcare such a rip-off? In nationalised healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high; in private healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high.
We can see from countries like Cuba that doctors aren't the result of educating a rare genius. But for some reason in the Western world we feel the need to artificially constrain their supply, take them through a hazing ritual to make them cynical about their patients, then treat them like gods.
Let's return medicine to what it started as in Greece: a calling to care for the sick. Let it be a thoroughly secure vocation for permanent healthcare workers, where there is an understanding of difficulties on both sides - not one solved by high price doctors, lawyers, insurance, third party agencies and miscellaneous bureaucracy (public or private).
Re:healthcare's a rip-off (Score:1, Insightful)
> Why is healthcare such a rip-off?
Because you are American.
Before anybody jumps up and yells at me that other health systems have their own problems and/or their success/efficacy is greatly inflated, let me agree with you that all those other health systems are generally crappy too.
It's just that your health system is so fucked that it makes everyone else's crappy to mediocre systems look luxurious* by comparison.
* in the Monty Python sense.