Super-Rich Americans Now Have Emergency Rooms In Own Homes

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can pay for you to avoid the headache of a waiting room. And that's a start.

Some wealthy households are choosing to forgo health insurance in favor of paying a monthly fee -- totaling up to $30,000 per year -- for concierge medicine, or the ability to have access to their physicians anywhere, anytime, Bloomberg News reports. Some families even have emergency rooms in their own homes, which can cost $1 million.

Though the number of concierge patients remains small, 64 percent of all doctors believe that concierge medicine has the best chance of financial success today, according to a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Concierge medicine first appeared in the mid-1990s, as some doctors wanted to spend more time with their patients and rich patients wanted to pay for better healthcare.

In addition to concierge medicine, the wealthy have a variety of plush options to choose from when it comes to their health care. Some hospitals are competing for wealthy clients by offering perks like butlers, fancy beds, beautiful views, and fine food. Some of New York-Presbyterian's luxury hospital rooms can cost patients $1,000 to $1,500 per day.

Wealthy families' access to all of these options likely only exacerbates the health care gap between the rich and the poor. A study in the U.K. found that managers live three years longer on average than workers with routine tasks. In addition, Harvard graduates live ten years longer on average then men living in inner-city Boston, according to a study from researchers at the university . Three in ten Harvard graduates lived to age 90, while the average American lives for 78 years, the study found.

Meanwhile, health care costs continue to rise as Americans' incomes when adjusted for inflation fall. Americans' health care spending in 2008 was triple what it was in 1990, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average family spent $13,770 on health care in 2010, according to a separate Kaiser report: 28 percent of the annual median household income.

Comments

[Van The Man]

07:42 PM on 12/02/2012

"Super Rich Have Emergency Rooms In Their Homes". Now there's a headline to stir up the proletariat and fan the flames of Class Warfare. But, we then find out that the number of super rich people who actually HAVE such medical facilities "remains small".

Yeah, they found 8 families in the entire U.S. and the editor said, "That's enough for an 20 point headline. Run it!!" Anything to stoke the fires of how successful people are the enemy. Let's all aspire to abject mediocrity. In the name of "equality" and "economic parity for all", you understand.

Capitalism provides equality of opportunity for those who put in the effort to achieve it, not the equality of result. Abandon that model at your peril. And you'll regret it more than you ever wished upon yourself.

[tconr9]

11:44 PM on 12/02/2012

well said

[Vicodin]

05:14 PM on 10/13/2012

The ONLY time we human beans are equal is at DEATH.

[TruthSquad1787]

05:12 PM on 10/13/2012

Takes a load off the hospital ERs. They also build additions to community medical facilities for the rest of us and support those hospitals with their huge tax payments. Thank you to all the rich people for generously supporting the nation's health!

[SMC281]

06:50 PM on 10/13/2012

You really believe that? Ew.

[TruthSquad1787]

11:48 PM on 10/13/2012

"Thank you to all the rich people for generously supporting the nation's health!”? Since I'm a beneficiary of this generosity, several times, I certainly do.

[American Plutocracy]

03:50 AM on 10/14/2012

I"m sorry, I try to be respectful of those I both agree and disagree with. But your comment is patently absurd. I suspect you realize it's an odd attempt at a justification for inequity with health care because, if we were to look at health care from an economic stance..your words become nothing more than rhetoric. I'd prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're really not hmm 'naive' as your words suggest.

[KayCee71]

04:28 AM on 10/14/2012

Hey AP, you might think it was written all tongue in cheek but the fact of the matter is that hospitals are being absorbed by monstrously wealthy corporations & so many of the needed things (i.e. new MRI, CT scanner, defibrillators & well stocked "crash carts" as well as whole wards) are often had by generosity of the demonized rich. Obama's health care plan will do NOTHING to help the poor (excepting fining them when they can't afford to pay for their health insurance coverage), yet it will make the filthy rich conglomo/corporate owned health care insurers LOTS of $$$$.

[TruthSquad1787]

09:47 AM on 10/14/2012

I'm glad that your response is adult and not third grade name calling as is so often seen on these pages. Thank you.

You state that my "comment is patently absurd" but have not explained why so. There are four statements in those three sentences. Would you please tell me which of those four you find untrue and why. Not which one(s) you find novel or new, but which ones are untrue. And since I'm a beneficiary of this generosity several times, my appreciation and gratitude is not naive.

[RaymondVincentKleine]

07:44 PM on 09/02/2012

this makes me want to vomit and yet i'm not surprised.they probably already have life extension therapy.i hate classism.

[newbaku]

06:04 PM on 05/31/2012

That's right. And many of these are the same people who DON'T want you to have universal health care and DON'T want to pay the same tax rates that you pay, and are hap-hap-happy to keep most Americans working in soul-sucking, crap-wage jobs, spending their paychecks on cheap, poisonous junk from China (via WalMart). But don't you DARE complain, and don't you DARE point out that the emperor is running around nekkid, because that will earn you the ludicrous label of "class hatred." Baaaaaaah.

[proudnative]

12:19 PM on 05/31/2012

The rich didn't get all that money by being wasteful. Seems like it would be cheaper and more efficient just to have regular health care. But what do I know...I'm not one of them...yet. ;)

[jimmyshipp]

03:28 PM on 12/02/2012

You're right. The rich almost always got their money by inheritance; both of piles of cash, and inheritance of some business where lots of little people labor for little money, and products are sold with minimum value and maximum price. Despite the rhetoric, it's almost impossible for someone who is outside that loop to become fabulously wealthy. Even the successful "bootstrap pullers" I know still have to work hard at their business, and will never join the fabulously wealthy class. Climbing the ladder is almost impossible. Companies recruit sideways, not from below.

[Michael Steaphens]

01:19 AM on 03/20/2012

Looks like these rich know what a load of garbage Obamacare will be!

[TeriA1]

04:04 PM on 04/07/2012

Obamacare is designed to protect those who can't pay for concierge medicine.

[Michael Steaphens]

03:15 AM on 04/08/2012

But in reality,it'll more than likely ending up doing more harm to those it's alleged to help.

[Mr College]

10:44 PM on 06/07/2012

who protects us from obama?

[Craig 212]

08:04 PM on 06/07/2012

You do realize that "Obamacare" would change nothing at all for those who can actually afford health care, right?

[Michael Steaphens]

11:57 PM on 10/14/2012

"You do realize that "Obamacare" would change nothing at all for those who can actually afford health care, right?"
You're right.Higher premiums and reduced utilization of things like our health spending accounts are "nothing" changes....

[JeanLuc Watine]

11:10 AM on 03/19/2012

Unbelievable !

[jsmit]

05:21 PM on 03/19/2012

Unbelievable, really? Rich people spend their money on a variety of things most of us will never be able to buy, so what? If they want to spend that much on health care, let them.

[silk olive]

07:49 PM on 03/19/2012

Unbelievable is right. We've got 3rd world conditions right here in America while the rest of the industrialized world provides free or affordable healthcare to all of its citizens, not just the wealthy.

[elmacar]

05:28 PM on 03/18/2012

Michael Jackson had easy access to his own personal physician. You see where it got him.

[lightbreeze]

05:12 PM on 03/18/2012

This article was news.....
in 1996:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concierge_medicine#History

History

"The origins of concierge medicine are often traced to MD2 International ("MD Squared"), which was launched in 1996 in Seattle by Dr. Howard Maron."

Great job, HuffPo!

[TeriA1]

04:05 PM on 04/07/2012

I'm sure concierge medicine has evolved since it's origins.

[lightbreeze]

07:20 PM on 04/07/2012

Certainly. And an article about how concierge medicine has evolved would have been interesting. Too bad HuffPo didn't choose to write one, and instead wrote one that could have been titled, "Aha! Guess what we found? Did you guys know about this?"

[MyTake]

10:03 AM on 03/18/2012

Thank heavens for delusional Americans.

Back on December 24th, 1913 (the day that Democracy died in the United States), the corrupt Rockefeller/JP Morgan syndicate sponsored the passing into law the acts of Federal Reserve, Graduated Income Tax and the tax exempt Foundation Law.

Now, 100 years later, that original 2 page tax code, denoting personal and business federal tax rates, after 100 years of massive assault from high powered law firms employed by the Wealthy and Corporate elites, now is over 4000 pages of TAX AVOIDANCE schemes.

And the Rockefeller Syndicate organized the Foundations to control the 3 big PRIVATE universities. Didn't anyone notice when Summers, a Rockefeller agent, got canned at Harvard that dear David Rockefeller had a $90 million check written for Harvard from his Foundation(s). When he learned of that news, he took out his pen and knocked off the ZERO from the Ninety. The Harvard Board will not make that error again.

The 1% vs 90% got its start in 1913 and had the 1% had to pay a single percentage tax, no exemptions, on their income, then wealth distribution would be 60% vs 40% today!

[Terri Skau]

03:36 PM on 03/18/2012

Great Post. I believe you may like this link...;-)

Mellon: The Banker Who Rigged the U.S. Tax Code | Bud Meyers
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2011/11/mellon-banker-who-rigged-us-tax-code.htm

[Grouchy Larry]

08:16 PM on 03/18/2012

Universal Exchange Tax

[jcolvin325]

08:26 AM on 03/18/2012

It's their money...they can spend as they wish.

[John Shuck]

08:51 AM on 03/18/2012

Actually their last few bonuses came out of the taxpayers pocket.

[nomadicexpat]

09:58 AM on 03/18/2012

what a ridiculous response. First off, there is no reference that this is about bankers. the families could make hangars, or toilet paper, or own construction companies, or a zillion other fields. Secondly, tax payer money was forced on many of the banks and paid back quickly in most cases

[LongBeachHawkeye]

11:03 AM on 03/18/2012

Jcolvin325...your comment is akin to saying that the money stolen by thieves is now their own and, therefore, they can spend it as they wish...that is wrongheaded at best.

[Michael Steaphens]

01:23 AM on 03/20/2012

Where's your evidence these people had stolen their money?Stop buying into Obama's class warfare crap about the rich getting that way by stealing and cheating others.

[Fabini]

07:47 AM on 03/18/2012

Michael Jackson had his own doctor.

[alunsulen]

03:32 AM on 03/18/2012

Oh the gall of the rich people - trying to get the best healthcare by paying out of their own pockets!

[Fabini]

07:48 AM on 03/18/2012

That side of the equation is fine. It's the other side that is worrisome. As healthcare professionals and resources move to the profit side, where do the masses get their health care?

[Iron Mike Texas]

10:31 AM on 03/18/2012

So basically you are saying that Obamacare isn't going to pay the healthcare professionals as much as the pro-profit group is willing to pay. In Cuba you get free medical care as long as you are an important communist official or have bribe money to get to the top of the list!

[jsmit]

05:23 PM on 03/19/2012

Maybe you should become a doctor and provide care for free.

[Hugo Stiglitz1]

01:28 PM on 03/18/2012

its out of your pocket. You'll never be one of them no matter how much you hope. Try defending your own pocketbook and not theirs.

[alunsulen]

02:07 PM on 03/18/2012

Be careful, too much envy and hatred increases chances of suffering from depression, strokes and heart attacks.

[jsmit]

05:23 PM on 03/19/2012

They can spend their money any way they want.

[Bill Roth]

03:04 AM on 03/18/2012

Hope the 'on call' knows how to sew heads back on.

[Michael Steaphens]

01:25 AM on 03/20/2012

Who's losing their heads?