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As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

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Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#141

Post by floxy »

minusLik wrote: post #67

What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts: https://themif.org/ Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59…

>an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000

Can you go into what that statement means? I'm having a hard time parsing "an usual". Seems like there are some electric wheelchairs for ~$2,000:

https://www.forbes.com/health/accessibility/best-electric-wh...

...maybe some specialized wheelchairs cost considerably more?

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#142

Post by krapp »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #133
readyman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't realize that FDA Class I regulations were this easy to comply with. They definitely won't be once this open source effort shows any sign of success. You can't solve political problems with technical solutions. At best, you may be able to displace them, but even that is rare.

When replicators are invented, most political problems will disappear. Star Trek got it right.

Star Trek style replicators can't be invented. The laws of physics won't allow it. It will always cost more energy and be vastly less efficient to assemble a cup of coffee atom by atom than it would to just grow the beans, have them picked, packaged and shipped, and make it yourself, and unlike in Star Trek, energy in the real world isn't free.

You might say we could come close with advanced 3D printing and some kind of nanotech,but no such technology will ever be so cheap or ubiquitous as to render politics obsolete. History is replete with advancements and inventions which were supposed to usher in utopia, and all they have ever done is further the means by which the powerful enslave and control us. Technology cannot solve human nature.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#143

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #46
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm skeptical of it being just regulation driven It seems to be blatantly obviously regulation in this case. There are electric wheelchairs in other countries. What's stopping them from being imported are the regulations.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#144

Post by ptero »

VHRanger wrote: post #129
cogman10 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really cool that an electric wheelchair costs more than a luxury EV and is somehow less reliable.

Wheelchair users have no bargaining power against wheelchair makers. Car buyers have leverage. Normally this exorbitant price would incentivize competition in a healthy market, but the private equity players presumably make that difficult. There might also be barriers to entry in the market.

I suspect in the US the lack of competition is due to regulation and liability, not VCs.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#145

Post by lagniappe »

floxy wrote: post #141
minusLik wrote: post #67

What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts: https://themif.org/ Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59…

>an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 Can you go into what that statement means? I'm having a hard time parsing "an usual". Seems like there are some electric wheelchairs for ~$2,000: https://www.forbes.com/health/accessibility/best-electric-wh... ...maybe some specialized wheelchairs cost considerably more?

Some folks in europe have a hard time knowing when to use a or an because there are so many exceptions, (a before consonant, an before open vowel sound) particularly in areas that pronounce it as oo-sual and not you-shual.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#147

Post by tyingq »

floxy wrote: post #141
minusLik wrote: post #67

What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts: https://themif.org/ Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59…

>an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 Can you go into what that statement means? I'm having a hard time parsing "an usual". Seems like there are some electric wheelchairs for ~$2,000: https://www.forbes.com/health/accessibility/best-electric-wh... ...maybe some specialized wheelchairs cost considerably more?

It's a complex set of sub-markets. Like, for example, if your kid has one...it has to be NHSTA crash test certified to put on a school bus.

Or, for people with very limited mobility, they need very special cushioning to avoid bedsore type problems.

Just 2 examples, there are many more. Though $65k still strikes me as unusual.

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#148

Post by makmanalp »

ptero wrote: post #144
VHRanger wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wheelchair users have no bargaining power against wheelchair makers. Car buyers have leverage. Normally this exorbitant price would incentivize competition in a healthy market, but the private equity players presumably make that difficult. There might also be barriers to entry in the market.

I suspect in the US the lack of competition is due to regulation and liability, not VCs.

Isn't the auto industry notoriously jam packed with regulation?

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#149

Post by [deleted] »

roughly wrote: post #95
wolverine876 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all theoretical. Do you see it actually working out this way? When and where? > regulators just, you know, look at the design of the chairs to evaluate them for certification. But customers could do the same thing for themselves, at less cost (what, you think those government regulators work for free?). So the regulations are actually adding zero value. But they're certainly not adding zero cost. I have little i…

Eternal September, except it’s an Econ 1 class.

[deleted]

Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs

#150

Post by Terr_ »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #3
tonetheman wrote: post #2

What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.

But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.

> ... or so we've been told.

To expand on this inconsistency, it comes from different people cheer-leading "the free market" with different and conflicting sets of assumptions about what the phrase means.

For example, one economist makes an assumption of "perfect information on prices and transactions", and declares that it's the most efficient thing ever.

But another one assumes actors are free to make secret deals and private transactions, and concludes that the free-market doesn't have a cartel problem, because individual members will secretly defect and undercut so that it falls apart.

Those two assumptions are in direct contradiction, yet somehow the overlap phrase "the free market" still gets touted as having both of the incompatible features.

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