Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Aaron Carroll thinks that retail health clinics fill a useful niche. “There are times when you need to see a health care professional early in the morning, or later at night,” he says. “Have you tried to get an appointment lately when you’re sick? It’s hard!” The chart on the right, which has made an appearance before on this blog, tells the story. Upwards of 20% of people who are sick have to wait a week to get an appointment to see a doctor. Matt Yglesias comments:

A lot of health care professionals in the United States seem to me to be slightly in denial about the level of service they’re providing. Somehow we have the most expensive health care system in the world, with the highest paid doctors, and yet it’s strangely difficult to actually get an appointment to see one.

My guess is that they’re not in denial at all. The reason it takes a long time to see a doctor is because they’re booked solid with appointments. They see 20 or 30 patients a day, every day, so most of them really have no particular incentive to make it any easier to make an appointment. Why would they when they’re already working at capacity?

And why are they working at capacity? Part of the reason is that we just don’t have all that many doctors in America:

These two charts are surprisingly uncorrelated, which presumably has something to do with how healthcare is run in various countries and something to do with cultural mores about how often we like to see doctors. Still, the overall picture is clear: we have relatively few doctors, they’re all really busy, and they get paid a lot more than in other countries. That may not be so hot from a patient’s point of view, but from a doctor’s standpoint, what’s not to like?

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate