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The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

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Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#111

Post by noir_lord »

kbutler wrote: post #100
omegaworks wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>India literally can't afford to give them the surgery. This is what's hard to conceptually grasp about nationalized healthcare. The concept of "a nation can't afford" does not make sense because a nation-state with control of its own currency can simply create and allocate the currency to serve this purpose. I'm not sure why this is not on the table.

I originally thought this comment deserved downvoting, because "we'll just print money" shows a lack of understanding about the role fiat currency plays in an economy. However, I realized that this comment is a valuable addition to the discussion, because it expresses an increasingly common misconception. So thanks for posting it. Yes, the nation can just print money, but will anyone accept it? When the supply of mon…

Printing more money also doesn’t affect external costs.

If that heart bypass machine is coming from Germany or Japan printing more rupees isn’t going to make it anymore affordable either.

However with abundant natural resources and a large population you could maybe be a self-sufficient economy in close to absolute terms.

I’m not sure what the Indian balance of trade currently is but they seem to be rapidly developing in a lot of ways.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#112

Post by noir_lord »

bluedino wrote: post #108
laurencerowe wrote: post #70

The US healthcare system is absurdly inefficient but the nominal cost comparison given in the article is meaningless since wages make up a huge proportion of costs in healthcare (either directly or embedded in supplies and services.) Nominal per capita income in India is ~$2000 while in the US it is ~$60,000. Simplistically one would expect costs to be approximately 30x higher in the US so a 20x difference in cost of…

What does a doctor make in the USA vs India?

Lawsuits I think.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#113

Post by dv_dt »

steve19 wrote: post #74
awaaz wrote: post #61

This article is really informative, and makes me feel proud to be an Indian. Medical care really is one of those things that no person should have to beg or borrow for, in a civil society. We're still not there yet as a country, but the signs are positive. FWIW, I'm relatively well off and have medical insurance, but the cost is absolutely negligible compared to what I hear is prevalent in the US - about $10 / month.…

I am not saying you should not be proud of Indian progress, but I suspect the experiences of a businessman in a big city in India are vastly different to a low caste woman with TB in rural India. A friend of mine is a nurse who did social work in rural India. What she told me about the local hospitals was horrifying, not just the condition of the hospital and how patients with infectious diseases were sleeping on the…

If you look at healthcare variation in the US, there are strong socioeconomic correlations to many measures of health and life expectancy too.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#114

Post by naruvimama »

steve19 wrote: post #74
awaaz wrote: post #61

This article is really informative, and makes me feel proud to be an Indian. Medical care really is one of those things that no person should have to beg or borrow for, in a civil society. We're still not there yet as a country, but the signs are positive. FWIW, I'm relatively well off and have medical insurance, but the cost is absolutely negligible compared to what I hear is prevalent in the US - about $10 / month.…

I am not saying you should not be proud of Indian progress, but I suspect the experiences of a businessman in a big city in India are vastly different to a low caste woman with TB in rural India. A friend of mine is a nurse who did social work in rural India. What she told me about the local hospitals was horrifying, not just the condition of the hospital and how patients with infectious diseases were sleeping on the…

The use of the word "low caste" is in quite mean considering "poor" would be more appropriate.

Just as Black or Native American would be a poor substitute for poor american.

Or Roma/Eskimo/Greenlander/Sami for Europe

Especially considering that the current prime minister and president of India are from so called backward communities.

India has come a long way in social development and using the "caste card" is quite out of taste.

The word "Caste" is of European origin and does not have a proper native equivalent.

The "caste system" itself is again a European concept imported into India to aid the colonial powers in their divide and rule.

Unlike the persecution of the Native Americans, Blacks, Jews or Aboriginal which were systematic state run pogroms often in democracies.

The fate of the "low caste" can be attributed to the fact that they were the most exploited, often to the point of death or slavery under colonial rule. While the so called "Upper caste" enjoyed second rung positions as peons, clerks and teachers. This experience is universal in the other colonies like Rwanda, Syria or Iraq where the words "Tribes" or "Clans" have come to substitute "Caste".

It must be noted that the newly independent India gave all Indians of both sexes the right to vote and went on further to provide "reservations" the equivalent of "affirmative action". This was long before the black American even got the right to vote. Less said about Europe the better, the "Roma" still get rounded up and "deported" even though as EU citizens they have the right to mobility.

"Caste" is a powerful tool for the unscrupulous politician inside India. The excuse of colonial apologists or more markedly the evangelists (if they are not the former) outside India.

Caste a European concept so prominent in the family names of Americans and Europeans, has today become synonymous with India thanks to the relentless propaganda of the colonialists/evangelists.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#115

Post by omegaworks »

kbutler wrote: post #100
omegaworks wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>India literally can't afford to give them the surgery. This is what's hard to conceptually grasp about nationalized healthcare. The concept of "a nation can't afford" does not make sense because a nation-state with control of its own currency can simply create and allocate the currency to serve this purpose. I'm not sure why this is not on the table.

I originally thought this comment deserved downvoting, because "we'll just print money" shows a lack of understanding about the role fiat currency plays in an economy. However, I realized that this comment is a valuable addition to the discussion, because it expresses an increasingly common misconception. So thanks for posting it. Yes, the nation can just print money, but will anyone accept it? When the supply of mon…

I knew I'd get this kneejerk reaction to "simply create and allocate the currency," I was holding out hope that responders would finish reading the sentence.

What I said was:

>a nation-state... can create and allocate the currency to serve this purpose.

I totally agree with you in a general sense. Creating and allocating currency and distributing it to the general population equally will cause the scenario you describe. "More dollars chasing fewer goods," as Greenspan described[1].

However, if we take the hypothetical scenario that the government agrees to pay exactly the current cost of the procedure at Narayana for medical procedures, none of what you described will come to pass. Wait times at Narayana might increase because more people might come in to have the services performed, but it will not cause runaway across-the-board inflation.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNCZHAQnfGU

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#116

Post by drewblaisdell »

thatoneuser wrote: post #99
jrochkind1 wrote: post #47

He succesfully performed a complicated surgery for $10K that would cost $200K in the US. And India still can't afford to pay those prices. The problem is obviously not that THIS guy is not working efficiently. It's that the distribution of wealth under our planetary economic system is deeply unfair.

Idk if I'd agree that it's "unfair" because that implies there's some natural balance we've disrupted, when in reality wealth is largely the result of labor and ingenuity. If a group of people gets together and creates wealth for themselves and their offspring, is it unfair that they are wealthier than the rest of the population? That kind of thinking at some level is fundamentally unfair itself - if you go collect a…

> in reality wealth is largely the result of labor and ingenuity

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that this is true.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#117

Post by robertAngst »

laurencerowe wrote: post #70

The US healthcare system is absurdly inefficient but the nominal cost comparison given in the article is meaningless since wages make up a huge proportion of costs in healthcare (either directly or embedded in supplies and services.) Nominal per capita income in India is ~$2000 while in the US it is ~$60,000. Simplistically one would expect costs to be approximately 30x higher in the US so a 20x difference in cost of…

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s

Can we start blaming Physicians and Pharmacists yet? Physicians are 300k+/yr earners because they artificially limit admissions of medical school.

Not to mention its dangerous to use Pharmacists in 2019. Everything should be done by computers. Expensive Dangerous rubber stamp.

But yes, Hospitals, insurance companies, and pharmacies are to blame.

To no surprise, all top 20 lobbyists, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#118

Post by chriscross »

jedberg wrote: post #94

I've read about this "assembly line surgery" being tried in the US as well. But the purpose was to experiment with replacing some of the more junior doctors with technicians. For example, there would be a technician who is only trained in opening the chest for heart surgery. That would be all they do, going from room to room opening chest cavities. Another technician would only do suturing at the end. These technicia…

I’ve worked as a surgical technician and can say that this already occurs in most hospitals. It was within my scope of practice to help the doctor suture at the end of the case as well as apply staples and bandaging so that they didn’t need to.

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#119

Post by aznpwnzor »

thatoneuser wrote: post #99
jrochkind1 wrote: post #47

He succesfully performed a complicated surgery for $10K that would cost $200K in the US. And India still can't afford to pay those prices. The problem is obviously not that THIS guy is not working efficiently. It's that the distribution of wealth under our planetary economic system is deeply unfair.

Idk if I'd agree that it's "unfair" because that implies there's some natural balance we've disrupted, when in reality wealth is largely the result of labor and ingenuity. If a group of people gets together and creates wealth for themselves and their offspring, is it unfair that they are wealthier than the rest of the population? That kind of thinking at some level is fundamentally unfair itself - if you go collect a…

> in reality wealth is largely the result of labor and ingenuity

many would argue that in reality wealth is largely the result of capital

Re: The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper

#120

Post by DoubleCribble »

jonathanyc wrote: post #67
DoubleCribble wrote: post #18

Some equipment is too expensive to be disposable and therefore requires enhanced cleaning protocols[0], but reusing as much equipment as possible just to save a few bucks seems penny wise but pound foolish. Why add unnecessary risk [1] if you can easily avoid it? [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3623380/ [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-for-pers...

Except his hospital has better outcomes for those procedures, according to TFA.

Where does it discuss long-term outcomes in TFA? Not all transmissible disease manifests within 30 days.
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