Consumer journalist John Stossel argues that the nation's healthcare system is causing bad customer service in an op-ed he wrote from the hospital as he received treatment for lung cancer.
Stossel, who works for Fox Business Network,
writes in a Fox News piece that he's expected to make a full recovery from the cancer.
"Soon I will barely notice that a fifth of my lung is gone," Stossel writes. "I believe them. After all, I'm at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. U.S. News & World Report ranked it No. 1 in New York. I get excellent medical care here."
The customer service he's receiving, however, is subpar.
Stossel then went on to list several instances in which hospitals come up short in the customer service department. It all stems, he writes, from the fact that consumers are not paying hospitals directly.
"Customer service is sclerotic because hospitals are largely socialist bureaucracies," he writes. "Instead of answering to consumers, which forces businesses to be nimble, hospitals report to government, lawyers and insurance companies."
Stossel points out that buying cars and flights are big purchases but the process is much easier on the consumer. The same holds true for plastic surgeons, who often work outside the realm of health insurance.
"What's different about those specialties? The patient pays the bill," Stossel writes.
"Patients will have a better experience only when more of us spend our own money for care. That's what makes markets work."
The healthcare market took a hit this week when UnitedHealth, the largest health insurance company in the nation,
said it would pull out of most of the Obamacare exchanges because it is losing money.