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Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

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Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#421

Post by hathawsh »

scribu wrote: post #417
hathawsh wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upvoting you just for engaging in this conversation, even though I thoroughly disagree with you. :-) The "distributism" described above is the dream of virtually every rural community. People choose to live in rural communities because it's a little piece of heaven for them: they are surrounded by people they know, they have clean air, the earth is right beneath their feet, the stars are bright, the pace is slow,…

The problem is that a small community can’t develop or even maintain advanced technology, including that required for sanitation and healthcare. So, you either choose total independence and low technology or interdependence with other groups and advanced tech.

Certainly. There will always be interdependence and rural communities understand that; that's why they drive modern pickup trucks rather than horse-drawn carriages. Still, they are always looking for ways to reduce their dependence on cities.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#422

Post by kbenson »

scribu wrote: post #417
hathawsh wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upvoting you just for engaging in this conversation, even though I thoroughly disagree with you. :-) The "distributism" described above is the dream of virtually every rural community. People choose to live in rural communities because it's a little piece of heaven for them: they are surrounded by people they know, they have clean air, the earth is right beneath their feet, the stars are bright, the pace is slow,…

The problem is that a small community can’t develop or even maintain advanced technology, including that required for sanitation and healthcare. So, you either choose total independence and low technology or interdependence with other groups and advanced tech.

Well, at least until we reach the science fiction utopian dream of nanoassemblers that can make nanoassemblers. Then rural communities could truly be independent.

Although that independence would be like a group of proto humans that knew about fire and how to use it, but not how to make it, and thus carefully guarded it and kept it fed, lest it go out.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#423

Post by tinokid »

tmh79 wrote: post #299
lotsofpulp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather entertaining to see the fallout of costs becoming more transparent in America's healthcare system. There is a reason why the medical field is so lucrative in the US, and it's because for decades it's been subject to extreme price obfuscation. This is great for the merchants (pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals, medical software providers, nurses, etc), especially for such inelastic goods such as healthcar…

Residency programs are more restricted by funding for residency spots, not by the AAMC. Funding is, very weirdly, provided by Medicare. It's all a tangled mess with lots of weird stakeholders, but saying "doctors are using rent seeking behavior to limit new entrants to the field" is a bit disingenuous. https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/how-medicare-s... https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/gme/71178/gme_gme0012.…

Nothing in these articles supports your contention. The "tangled mess" is by design. By the people who stand to profit from it.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#424

Post by noobermin »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #13
jawns wrote: post #7

> The three companies said they plan to set up a new independent company "that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints." I wonder if they will be setting it up as a health insurance cooperative, an organizational structure in which the primary goal is to serve its members, rather than to generate value for external shareholders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_cooperative It's not at all…

One of the benefits a profit motive brings to insurance companies is pushing back on improper billing by providers (doctors/hospitals) and negotiating lowest possible care and drug rates. Tech-focused insurers like Oscar also invest heavily to help guide members toward better care paths, which if done well lead to better care at less expense (for both the member and insurer). Unrelated: one of the worst parts of insu…

This is diametrically opposed to the facts. People need to stop making arguments like this about profit driven insurance when our system has the US spend the most per capita amongst modern nations with mediocre results.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#425

Post by ascorbic »

TillE wrote: post #361
jedberg wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't pay individually for private security/police. We don't pay for fire. Sure they do. Rich people hire private security all the time. Heck, not-rich people do it too. Like your local Chuck E Cheese who hires a security guard on Friday night. Same with fire protection. There are plenty of private fire protection companies. Everyone gets those basic services paid for out of their taxes, but some people want…

Germany is one of very few countries with a robust public insurance scheme which also allows private insurance, but I wouldn't expect that to last too much longer - there's a growing consensus (57.6% in a recent poll) around the idea that receiving faster or better care because you can pay more is fundamentally unfair. People need the health care that they need. Unless we're talking about small things like your own p…

The UK has similar. Single payer rather than public insurance, but people can buy private insurance if they want. It's certainly a small minority who do: it's largely a perk for some senior jobs, along with the BMW. It's relatively cheap (around £50/month for a non-smoker in their 30s), because all of the basic stuff is already covered by the NHS. The private insurance is mostly about getting shorter waiting times for elective surgery, and maybe a nice room.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#426

Post by marnett »

zjaffee wrote: post #411
visarga wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distributism Thank you for giving a name to something I have been pondering a lot. I have come to this conclusion by thinking about automation and technological unemployment. If people own land, or productive tools, they can be self reliant and exist without jobs from corporations, or help from the state. Naturally people would organise as a cooperative or a market of services, exchanging services for services, bec…

This already exists, and is in many ways a form of communism. Take a look at kibutz's in israel.

I think GP is referencing a type of Commune, where potentially services, possessions, and responsibilities are shared amongst those who live there. America has had communes as well

Communism is where all property is publicly owned and each is given what they need.

A commune is a self-reliant community, likely to be small - individuals need each other. A communist state is still a state, it is not decentralized like a commune, but very centralized. Instead of relying on each other everyone relies entirely on the state.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#427

Post by noobermin »

ChrisClark wrote: post #174
bbddg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call this liberal-communism. We just have to put our trust in benevolent billionaires to solve our problems for us with no oversight or democratic controls whatsoever. The idea that this is anything but an attempt to squeeze even more money out of the system for quite literally the richest people on Earth is naive. In Ohio, 10% of Amazon employees are on food stamps[1] while Bezos is worth over 100 billion dollar…

Isn't that just conservative-capitalism? Specifically the US Republicans? Get rid of regulations, lower taxes on corporations and billionaires and put our trust in benevolent billionaires to solve our problems for us with no oversight or democratic controls whatsoever.

He probably means liberal as in inspired by classical liberalism. These days, the buzzword for it is neoliberalism.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#428

Post by kbenson »

ergothus wrote: post #412
sagichmal wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this form of self-reliance a virtue? To me, it looks pathological; certainly not something we should collectively be working towards.

I can't say if it's better or not, but we do know that human organizations function poorly at scale. The larger the group, the more difficult it is to communicate, the easier it is to feel powerless, the more the problems of a large chunk of the group are remote and abstract (and thus ignored/missed/downplayed/deprioritized) I suspect that you also have more corruption and/or abuse of power because (a) the previous e…

I'm not sure any of your claims are backed up by data. Is our larger society more corrupt? Is it more difficult to communicate?

I could just as easily argue that smaller, more insular groups promote distrust of outsiders and lack of empathy, which might lead to more wars. I have no idea if that's true, but it sounds plausible to me.

In the end, actually examining data is what's needed. Until there are facts to assess, we're just spouting wild conjecture.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#429

Post by ben_w »

visarga wrote: post #325
jawns wrote: post #7

> The three companies said they plan to set up a new independent company "that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints." I wonder if they will be setting it up as a health insurance cooperative, an organizational structure in which the primary goal is to serve its members, rather than to generate value for external shareholders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_cooperative It's not at all…

> distributism Thank you for giving a name to something I have been pondering a lot. I have come to this conclusion by thinking about automation and technological unemployment. If people own land, or productive tools, they can be self reliant and exist without jobs from corporations, or help from the state. Naturally people would organise as a cooperative or a market of services, exchanging services for services, bec…

> [people] can be self reliant and exist without jobs from corporations, or help from the state. Naturally people would organise as a cooperative or a market of services, exchanging services for services, because they have little money and no corporate jobs. Yet they can work, so they can create a kindergarten for children of the neighbourhood, or a medical clinic, or a mechanic repair-shop, or a construction company, and so on.

How is that self-reliant? It’s different from most of the current developed economies, but it’s still division of labour and relying on others for some things.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#430

Post by mark-r »

jedgardyson wrote: post #15
jawns wrote: post #7

> The three companies said they plan to set up a new independent company "that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints." I wonder if they will be setting it up as a health insurance cooperative, an organizational structure in which the primary goal is to serve its members, rather than to generate value for external shareholders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_cooperative It's not at all…

This feels like a setup for a broader push into healthcare by these companies. The sector is still growing, Amazon is already working out the pharmacy space. "[F]ree from profit-making incentives and constraints" sounds like the strategy they've used so far to dominate sections of online retail.

I have some medical supplies that Amazon will sell me without a prescription. I used them last time because I neglected to order far enough ahead of time, and the game of tag between my doctor and my pharmacy would have taken too long - Amazon Prime to the rescue! Today I pick up a new prescription at my pharmacy, and I'm curious to know if my insurance copay is less than what Amazon charged. I'm guessing it could go 50-50 either way.
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