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The NY Times reported last week on a growing phenomenon that has its roots deep in American history: luxury hospital suites.
Responding to "medical tourism" in places like Singapore and Thailand, where wealthier patrons pay for the most pleasant service they can find, American hospitals are striving ever more to provide star hotel-like quality.
NY-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, for example, treats patients in an exclusive wing with premium bed linens, polished bathrooms, panoramic windows, and elaborate menus. For over $1000/day, the atrium features a waterfall and grand piano. Of all of the descriptions the Times offers, the priciest room is an LA maternity ward, for $3,784.
The attraction for doctors is that this fee is on top of the medical bill and doesn't involve the tedious third-payer system. However, some raise ethical and consequential concerns. On the one hand, how moral is it to afford poorer individuals double-occupancy rooms, when others enjoy the lap of luxury, especially when "singles are now the national standard for infection control and quicker recovery." This ethical tension first became a factor at the turn of the 19th century, according to a Columbia professor of public health.
More importantly, does the occupancy of an entire wing of the hospital have any effect on those in the rest of the hospital? Recent occupations of entire NYC hospital wings by the Saudi king and Jay-Z and Beyonce have garnered sizeable complaint.
Meanwhile, the government is now cutting back on health funding, which raises other complex concerns about health incentives, as well as hospitals' public relations, which seem weak on this issue. Also hypocritical however are those patients on Medicare (which pays doctors relatively little), who also happen to be patrons of high-priced suites.
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