A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#51

Post by mathverse » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #11

mathverse wrote: post #8

And this is with then sucking eastern europe dry off almost all capable medical personnel. Lets face it Western European healthcare is a scam. They are barely existing with millions of qualified people from CEE and now they are eyeing countries like Philippines, Indonesia and such. It is all a ponzi

I don’t have any specific information on the current situation, and regarding future developments, well my crystal ball is currently in service — but regarding the situation up until at least recently, I will go on record any time: I have lived the past 44 years in the context of the German health care system, and it was basically perfect, period. Compared to the US (hearsay), and the Eastern European systems (first…

We are talking about sustainability not quality here. German health care system is barely functioning (and it always was like that. Remember the korean nurses in Western Germany?) living off of other countries labor. And per capita germany is the 2nd behind the US on healthcare expenditure.

There's louder and louder voices in other countries to fix this problem by mandating the medical personnel trained in those countries to practice medicine for X number of years. It's simply not sustainable.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#52

Post by skrebbel » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

brainchild-adam wrote: post #33

I, for the life of me, cannot understand how something as essential as healthcare does not take priority over comparatively less essential things. It must be an unintended result of our complex societal setup with each stakeholder pursuing their own limited gain with no regard for the bigger picture, because it just makes no sense. Same is true for other essentials such as firefighting, basic infrastructure, etc. Why…

The examples you listed are nearly free compared to the cost of social welfare programs, free/affordable education and infrastructure.

Eg it is not obvious to me that we should close schools (or let them go to shit) to pay for health care.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#53

Post by nradov » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #41

naasking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when companies run these things because they care about profit / shareholder return more than they care about the people. We can accept that without also accepting that governments care about the people either. The top-level care about re-election, and the managers that survive party transitions care about their budgets, their fiefdoms, and maybe sometimes their employees rather than the public write large. Corpora…

> Corporations are kept in line with proper competition, where possible. What feedback mechanism is their to keep government bureaucracy in line? Sometimes they have audits, but those are never detailed or frequent enough. No they aren't. This flies in the face of all the evidence right in front of you. They just form cartels and monopolies. The US where everything is private and is the most expensive (by far!!) with…

The US has the best 5-year survival outcomes for most forms of cancer.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#54

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #38

ethanbond wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in democratic states the people also hold the reins on the other end via elections. You don’t get to vote for CEOs or their boards or their boards largest shareholders for $0. So yeah they’re characteristically different.

The problem with state-run healthcare (as well as education) is that costs (especially salaries) can become a political issue. In parts of Canada we’re experiencing severe shortages of healthcare workers (such as nurses) because governments have frozen their pay for political reasons.

Why does the electorate vote for politicians who won’t pay nurses what they’re worth?

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#55

Post by naasking » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2:59 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #50

naasking wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US where everything is private and is the most expensive (by far!!) with the least covered and worst outcomes compared to the one's we're talking about. You're ignoring ALL the evidence just to bolster your ideological nonsense. Do AMD and Intel have have a cartel, or do they have a healthy competition that drives down prices and improves product quality? That's direct evidence against your claim that a) I'm ig…

The previous post was making descriptive claims about US healthcare but then you responded with an abstract principle supported by an example in chips. It’s much more apt to go straight to your very last sentence.

No, I made a general point about government and private interests having different failure modes, this person responded by calling my point devoid of evidence and that private interests form monopolies and cartels and that healthcare somehow disproves my general argument, and I showed an existence proof that their single example is not generalizable and not reflective of the common case.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#56

Post by nradov » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:00 PM UTC

brainchild-adam wrote: post #33

I, for the life of me, cannot understand how something as essential as healthcare does not take priority over comparatively less essential things. It must be an unintended result of our complex societal setup with each stakeholder pursuing their own limited gain with no regard for the bigger picture, because it just makes no sense. Same is true for other essentials such as firefighting, basic infrastructure, etc. Why…

The human race managed to survive pretty well for millennia without any sort of healthcare system. So how essential is it? Most of the major modern gains in life expectancy have been due to public sanitation and childhood vaccination. Everything else we get from healthcare is marginal.

Healthcare is certainly important, and we ought to provide affordable access to at least basic healthcare to everyone. But it's not essential in the same way as water, food, housing, and energy.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#57

Post by albertopv » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

theCrowing wrote: post #10

albertopv wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a Ponzi, reality is western europe is not really rich, not as much as it seems. Debt is over the roof, demography is a disaster, politicians worse and worse every year passing, corruption even inside EU parliament. China is now much richer as a whole.

You are projecting the views of riches in China on the very few factors you are allowed to see go further than 100 miles from a big city and you are basically in the 1900s.

Come to Italy, there's people from the hills sellings eggs from their cars. Btw, China has a space station all alone, only country in the world. How so?

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#58

Post by theCrowing » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

albertopv wrote: post #57

theCrowing wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are projecting the views of riches in China on the very few factors you are allowed to see go further than 100 miles from a big city and you are basically in the 1900s.

Come to Italy, there's people from the hills sellings eggs from their cars. Btw, China has a space station all alone, only country in the world. How so?

See they have cars... everyone else knows that it's not a good investment?

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#59

Post by dogma1138 » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #41

naasking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when companies run these things because they care about profit / shareholder return more than they care about the people. We can accept that without also accepting that governments care about the people either. The top-level care about re-election, and the managers that survive party transitions care about their budgets, their fiefdoms, and maybe sometimes their employees rather than the public write large. Corpora…

> Corporations are kept in line with proper competition, where possible. What feedback mechanism is their to keep government bureaucracy in line? Sometimes they have audits, but those are never detailed or frequent enough. No they aren't. This flies in the face of all the evidence right in front of you. They just form cartels and monopolies. The US where everything is private and is the most expensive (by far!!) with…

The problem with applying regular market economics to healthcare is that it doesn’t take into account the actual market conditions.

Healthcare is heavily regulated and for a good reason which means that the barrier to entry and the entire playing field is controlled by the regulators.

It also isn’t as scalable as other industries and extracting efficiency comes at a real human cost. You can’t deliver healthcare by offshoring it, and you can’t make it much more efficient by taking out people from the process and replacing them with automation at least not on any feasible timescale.

Healthcare also has a very inelastic market people can’t go without it’s not a luxury or something you can go without.

Also unlike many other industries healthcare becomes more expensive as it develops as you develop new treatments for previously untreatable conditions and people generally live longer.

Whilst the private sector does have a role to play in healthcare it’s not as simple as let the market take care of it.

Markets in general are pretty bad at favoring long term gains over short term ones and healthcare is really not suited for short term thinking.

Re: A ticking time bomb: healthcare under threat across western Europe

#60

Post by ProjectArcturis » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #36

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're calling Jacinda Ahern a right-winger, the term has lost all meaning. Do you need the state to seize the means of production in order to call a government left-wing?

At least a few explicit examples would be a good place to start. I look forward to it.

Examples of what? You're just using a word wrong. There's nothing more to it.