If there was a quicker path to socialized medicine it’s the medical industries latest push to formulate a method for determining a patient’s ability to pay.

The project, dubbed “MedFICO” in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive.

Is it that big a reach to think medical insurance companies won’t use this system to score a patient’s worthiness from a profit perspective. There’s so much wrong with our countries health system, one knows barely where to begin. I think the basic bones are there and I can’t say that I’m an advocate of socialized medicine. However, when I read stories like this (click the link in the title) on MSNBC it makes me wonder if it isn’t going to take something as radically as completely taking health care away from the insurance companies to put us back on track.

The whole notion of a Medical Fico score speaks to the industries concern with profits over providing quality health care. Something that should be a ‘right’ of every human being – not just the wealthy.