What's the point of a primary care doctor?

“I still don’t really understand what’s going on with the health system, and I’ve been here nearly five years,” says Alistair, a sports journalist who lives and works in New York City. An American citizen by parentage, but brought up in England, he says he’s only now coming to grips with the risky business of insurance. “In Britain you don’t need to understand it — you just go to a doctor and they treat you and then you go home.