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Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

economist.com

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Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#61

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #40
adamredwoods wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> anti-science stuff that gets thrown around these days It wasn't just anti-science but deliberate attempts to stop Obamacare, the ONLY initiative ever attempted to fix the US healthcare system. Then came the Republicans to stop it. https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/why-t... IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly gr…

> IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly grows larger by adding new states. If another state doesn't want to join, then, so be it. It blows my mind that they don’t do this. During most of the 20th century, Democrat-run states wanted to tax Republican California to pay for social programs. So doing things at the national level was critica…

How do you avoid the obvious adverse selection problem? California can't prevent the most expensive people in the country from moving there, and the system we're talking about would be a powerful incentive for those people to do so.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#62

Post by AnimalMuppet »

denkmoon wrote: post #58
klyrs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't familiar with the propaganda if you think folks duped by it would consider "other societies" with anything other than fear hatred and contempt. The problem with "do your own research" is confirmation bias.

What is the alternative? Counter-propaganda, my propaganda is better than your propaganda because mine is "right"? I don't have a good answer to this question, I'm wondering if others do.

Counter-propaganda isn't the answer. We've already got counter-propaganda, from the other political party. It's not persuading anybody who doesn't already drink that flavor of Kool-Aid.

No, I don't have an answer either. I just know that counter-propaganda isn't it.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#63

Post by bruce511 »

refurb wrote: post #54
suture wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming by free you mean universal coverage that is (almost) free at the point of usage then this is a solved problem. What the United States lacks in order to realize a solution is political willpower and an electorate that is savvy enough to know that wanting such a system does not make one a communist. (And that being a communist does not make one an evil person.)

Canada has "free" universal healthcare, but to call it a "solved problem" seems pretty naive.

It's a solved problem in the sense that it exists, and works[1] and it is available in a lot more places than Canada.

[1] "works" is an interesting point because it isn't clearly defined, and usually means different things to different people.

Ever experience of the system is "unique" - there is this mix of human patient with human provider with finite resources with medical knowledge with time. So there are plenty of examples of long waits, bad service, unfavorable outcomes, even death. It's not hard to cherry pick bad experiences here.

No health system will make everyone live forever. Death comes to us all sooner or late. But universal healthcare works in many places in raising the overall standard of public health, without bankrupting people in the process.

Given that its always spending limited money, and only scales at human rates, its far from perfect. But, at least for some, its better than a "health care level based on your wealth" system.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#64

Post by kwonkicker »

tchvil wrote: post #59
systemvoltage wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1) Allow Gov to build up regulations so complex that it requires a force of nature to over come. Step 2) Big Tech builds technology around those regulations and sells it to people. Step 3) Viola! we have a giant massive ocean-like moat that surrounds the Big Gov + Big Tech castle. Never to be breached by the likes of Silicon Valley startups or otherwise. We are already in a dystopian time.

I see it frequently here... I suppose it comes from French. Viola means rape(il la viola) or break the law(il viola la loi). The real one is voilà! And dropping the accent, is apparently acceptable in English. Voila! ;)

I laughed hard at this revelation

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#65

Post by fragmede »

rayiner wrote: post #40
adamredwoods wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> anti-science stuff that gets thrown around these days It wasn't just anti-science but deliberate attempts to stop Obamacare, the ONLY initiative ever attempted to fix the US healthcare system. Then came the Republicans to stop it. https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/why-t... IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly gr…

> IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly grows larger by adding new states. If another state doesn't want to join, then, so be it. It blows my mind that they don’t do this. During most of the 20th century, Democrat-run states wanted to tax Republican California to pay for social programs. So doing things at the national level was critica…

That's a good idea! Unfortunately, California is subject to the same business interests that the Federal government is also beholden to, so attempts to do so have a hard time getting traction for the exactly the same reason.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1077155345/california-univers...

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#66

Post by lotsofpulp »

rayiner wrote: post #40
adamredwoods wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> anti-science stuff that gets thrown around these days It wasn't just anti-science but deliberate attempts to stop Obamacare, the ONLY initiative ever attempted to fix the US healthcare system. Then came the Republicans to stop it. https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/why-t... IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly gr…

> IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly grows larger by adding new states. If another state doesn't want to join, then, so be it. It blows my mind that they don’t do this. During most of the 20th century, Democrat-run states wanted to tax Republican California to pay for social programs. So doing things at the national level was critica…

Vermont did try it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform

It does not work for the reasons tptacek wrote. With freedom of movement, eventually net benefit recipients will move in, and net payers into the system will move out.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#67

Post by jholman »

tchvil wrote: post #59
systemvoltage wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1) Allow Gov to build up regulations so complex that it requires a force of nature to over come. Step 2) Big Tech builds technology around those regulations and sells it to people. Step 3) Viola! we have a giant massive ocean-like moat that surrounds the Big Gov + Big Tech castle. Never to be breached by the likes of Silicon Valley startups or otherwise. We are already in a dystopian time.

I see it frequently here... I suppose it comes from French. Viola means rape(il la viola) or break the law(il viola la loi). The real one is voilà! And dropping the accent, is apparently acceptable in English. Voila! ;)

Because we're writing in English, "viola" is neither rape nor lawbreaking, though "violate" can mean either of those. In English, "viola" is the name of a stringed instrument.

Voila, behold a viola! One fourth of a string quartet!

But if you're irked by "viola", it could be worse, they could have written "wallah", which is all too frequent.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#68

Post by claytongulick »

paulmd wrote: post #57

As someone who worked in this area: > Google is also giving health records another whirl. The new initiative, called Care Studio, is aimed at doctors rather than patients. Google’s earlier efforts in this area were derailed in part by hospitals’ sluggishness in digitising their patient records. Not just digitizing but also in sharing them. Hospital systems are very very reluctant to send out a copy of their records,…

FHIR makes a lot of this better, but EHR vendors hate it for that reason.

Also, it's complex to implement.

Fortunately, we have HAPI [1] and it's very good, but has deployment complexity only a java developer could love.

There's been a couple false starts on a nodejs based FHIR server, but nothing open source and production ready that I've found.

[1] https://hapifhir.io/

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#69

Post by Apocryphon »

systemvoltage wrote: post #24
suture wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming by free you mean universal coverage that is (almost) free at the point of usage then this is a solved problem. What the United States lacks in order to realize a solution is political willpower and an electorate that is savvy enough to know that wanting such a system does not make one a communist. (And that being a communist does not make one an evil person.)

I'm not convinced, even with the best of intentions. In fact, I am convinced of the opposite: A) Universal Health program would result in terrible quality health care B) It would lead to longer wait times, and less choices C) It would be insanely costly to fund. We've been busy printing a lot of $. Increased the Federal deficit from $21T to $30 since COVID and there isn't a good way to fund a bloated system in USA, c…

> C) It would be insanely costly to fund.

How could it be even more expensive than our current inefficient, half-baked, worst of both worlds system, which is more expensive than socialized systems in other nations? And more expensive per capita, not simply overall.

Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care

#70

Post by klyrs »

denkmoon wrote: post #58
klyrs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't familiar with the propaganda if you think folks duped by it would consider "other societies" with anything other than fear hatred and contempt. The problem with "do your own research" is confirmation bias.

What is the alternative? Counter-propaganda, my propaganda is better than your propaganda because mine is "right"? I don't have a good answer to this question, I'm wondering if others do.

If I knew, I'd already be president? The only thing that seems to actually work is slow, one on one, patiently and empathetically working with people where they are. Mass media only seems to be effective at sowing division.

Maybe things were different under the Fairness Doctrine? I don't know.

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