John Stossel rants about health care system

'Customer service stinks,' complains Fox reporter from lung cancer hospital bed

John Stossel

John Stossel, a 69-year-old libertarian Fox consumer reporter, can be sardonic.

Even when he's in a New York-Presbyterian Hospital bed being treated for lung cancer.

Maybe especially when he's in a New York-Presbyterian Hospital bed being treated for lung cancer.

In a recent opinion piece for Fox, he wrote: "I'll be fine. Soon I will barely notice that a fifth of my lung is gone. But…I have to say, the hospital's customer service stinks. Doctors keep me waiting for hours, and no one bothers to call or email to say, 'I'm running late.'"

Stossel, who says he never smoked cigarettes, goes on to gripe about getting "X-rays, EKG tests, echocardiograms, blood tests," questioning if all were really needed. 

"I doubt it," he answers himself, "but no one discussed that with me or mentions the cost. Why would they? The patient rarely pays directly. Government or insurance companies pay."

The reporter's rant against the health care system continues: "Customer service is sclerotic because hospitals are largely socialist bureaucracies [that] report to government, lawyers and insurance companies," not consumers.

Some of his nurses, he says, "were great — concerned about my comfort and stress — but other hospital workers were indifferent. When the customer doesn't pay, customer service rarely maters."

In a follow-up column, he responds to some who objected in print to his extreme views: "My local supermarket is open 24/7. They rarely make me wait, prices are low, there's plenty of choice and they rarely poison me. That's what competition brings — if people pay with their own money."

Stossel is the host of his own Friday night program on the Fox Business Network that deals with consumer affairs — and also appears regularly on the Fox News Channel and "The O'Reilly Factor" providing a libertarian analysis.

The Princeton grad previously was co-anchor of ABC's newsmagazine, "20/20."

He's won 19 Emmy Awards.

For a non-libertarian point of view of patient care, you can check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.