Patients Are Not Consumers

Amen, and the way our business-friendly politicians try to frame these debates is revealing.

Physicians have a duty to act in the best interests of their patients, on individual, community, and societal levels...regardless of the "profit-and-loss" of business entities.

I had an attending when I was in residency training who would absolutely blow his stack if any physician ever referred to themselves as a "provider", or a patient as a "client". It's a much different relationship.