Large Hospitals Are Trying to Ban Specialized Hospitals from Existence

What is the deal with the large hospitals preventing patients from receiving accurate heath information in order to make accurate health choices?

Should we as a society settle for second rate care at premium prices? This months "Forbes" magazine put out an article discussing the ways in which the large hospitals are "bullying" the smaller, specialized hospitals that provide a higher rate of care at lower prices. As a patient, I personally do not want to risk having a non-specialized resident perform a procedure on me in a place riddled with germs and staph infections that are not required to be reported to the general public.

Smaller, specialized hospitals have started popping up all over the country. These specialized centers provide limited services, and do not have the high risk of infection. While the doctors in these centers are completing high numbers of specialized surgeries and have a much higher recovery rate, larger hospitals have been "forcing" the government to limit and even put bans on the expansion of the specialized centers. Large hospitals donate millions of dollars to political campaigns to help prevent their competitors from gaining any control over the medical market.

Patients should be able to choose between a large, non-specialized hospital riddled with sick people versus a small, specialized surgical center with lower rates of infection and mortality. Patients will fare better in an environment where the doctors are specialized and more experienced in the specific procedure they are to have done. Do you really want to have your knee replaced by a general surgeon in the hospital filled with germs? OR would you prefer to have your knee replaced by a knee replacement specialist in a small hospital where only healthy people having the same or similar procedures were being housed?
If the choice didn't already seem easy enough, the smaller, specialty hospitals are up to 19% cheaper as well. The larger hospitals are fighting the expansion of such specialty hospitals with the argument that doctors hold personal stake in many of these ventures and should not be able to refer patients to ventures in which they may be part owners or investors. Even if that argument is true, what does it really matter when the patient receives care from a more experienced, specialized doctor with a lesser rate of infection? Larger hospitals are PREVENTING patients from receiving the medical care that they deserve.

Forbes used the analogy, "You wouldn't take your Ford to a VW mechanic" so why would you trust a specialized procedure to a generalized hospital staff, where hundreds of ill people are staying? In all honesty, it doesn't really make much sense, does it?

America is a country based on the freedom of choice, yet large hospitals are controlling the market for emergency health care. While funding political campaigns with millions of dollars, the large hospitals are able to keep the smaller, specialized hospitals from creating any type of competition. Free enterprise is designed to thrive on competition, and we as a country have a right to choose who provides us with health care. Large hospitals are preventing specialized hospitals from expanding or even being built. In addition, large hospitals threaten to increase their insurance premiums and fees for insurance companies opt to cover specialized hospital procedures, therefore strong-arming insurance companies into NOT covering procedures that would be in the better interest of the patient.

What happened to the free market?