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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

#281

Post by RecycledEle »

akira2501 wrote: post #165
RecycledEle wrote: post #85

I deal with wheelchairs, electric wheelchairs, oxygen systems, CPAPs, spirometry, and more every day. Electric wheelchairs are built to be very rugged and dirt simple. There are 2 problems: The first problem is insurance. People expect their insurance to cover everything. If they need a new set of 35 AH SLA batteries, they will throw their old chair away and ask for a new chair on insurance. The second problem is tha…

> If they need a new set of 35 AH SLA batteries, they will throw their old chair away and ask for a new chair on insurance. > One connector broke and was impossible to replace. I would gladly pay $100 for a single connector, but they do not exist. Before someone says to replace both ends of the connector, this is a connector mounted in a custom bracket with almost zero clearance as the chair's seat fits right on top…

I can not say which is more prevalent.

> So.. which is more prevalent.. users throw away their chairs because they expect to live high on the hog off insurance, or users throw away their chairs because any form of replacement is often met with these arbitrary and senseless complications?

Those who can work on chairs themselves do so. Those who can not work on chairs do not.

If you have on idea what kind of connector a 12V 35AH battery would have, and have no way to disassemble your chair to replace the batteries, then you can not realistically replace those batteries. Add in living off $1,400 a month and you see why someone would ask for a free wheelchair instead of paying $250 for an uncertain chance at repairing their wheelchair.

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

#282

Post by RecycledEle »

sokoloff wrote: post #119
RecycledEle wrote: post #85

I deal with wheelchairs, electric wheelchairs, oxygen systems, CPAPs, spirometry, and more every day. Electric wheelchairs are built to be very rugged and dirt simple. There are 2 problems: The first problem is insurance. People expect their insurance to cover everything. If they need a new set of 35 AH SLA batteries, they will throw their old chair away and ask for a new chair on insurance. The second problem is tha…

I’ve worked on cars and other mechanical things for most of 3 decades. I’ve never needed a sticker telling me what size standard bolts were. On the broken, ruled as patent-infringing part, what do you want to happen that would comply with patent law? If it was compatible with Anderson, you’d just buy that. Since it wasn’t and the original company isn’t allowed to keep making them…

> I’ve worked on cars and other mechanical things for most of 3 decades. I’ve never needed a sticker telling me what size standard bolts were.

> On the broken, ruled as patent-infringing part, what do you want to happen that would comply with patent law? If it was compatible with Anderson, you’d just buy that. Since it wasn’t and the original company isn’t allowed to keep making them…

That is true of professional mechanics. A disabled guy with a screwdriver who never changed his own oil needs some help.

I did a poor job picking examples. Let's take about the complicated parts.

The joystick controller on most electric wheelchairs uses a very particular connector. If I do not know the brand and model number on that, I am probably screwed.

"Trim" pieces are often required to prevent a disabled person's limp limb from being sucked into a gap near a tire. Trying to order replacements for those is almost impossible.

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

#283

Post by readyman »

wolverine876 wrote: post #255
readyman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA serves many compromised purposes that, in sum, prioritize the interests of the capitalists who predominately control it. The same can be said for the entire US government.

Everyone keeps repeating it, but could you give evidence of that happening? Who are the commissioners? What about the staff?

The rich keep getting richer faster at the expense of everyone else.

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

#284

Post by noobermin »

jordanb wrote: post #247

Our whole economy is feeling increasingly Soviet. Somehow our business leaders have decided that the best business is one that does not serve its customers, and that providing a good or service efficiently and effectively is poor management because it is "leaking value" to counterparties. I guess the next phase is going to be you need to know people if you want your medical device delivered, your car repaired, or for…

In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher talked about how capitalism through the institution of the corporation developed the very byzantine bureaucracies and middle men that had long been called out as failures of the Soviet system, and in some ways, proved to be even more inefficient.

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

#285

Post by justinclift »

konfusinomicon wrote: post #234
newsclues wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s similar to defence procurement. If the customer is government with endless budget, inflate costs, and use regulatory capture to maintain the cash flow.

some senator just held up a bag on bushings for use on fighter jets suring a speech..the cost for a sandwich bag full...$90k

Any idea if they're precision engineered out of something exotic? Maybe machined from single-crystal titanium or something.

Asking because there's a bit of a different between standard consumer grade stuff, and specialist high performance things designed for a specific exotic environment.

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

#286

Post by justinclift »

beaeglebeachh wrote: post #235
underlipton wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulatory capture is likely the most important component. People complain about government spending, but those close to progressive issues can tell you that it's just as likely, if not more likely, to be remarkably stingy when it wants to be. The issue isn't government, it's who's using government; access to capital on top of that government influence gets you a lot closer to that bottomless wallet.

This is why I'm for total deregulation of healthcare. Government fucks it up so bad hamstringing access that some hack work with 15 minutes of YouTube training plus whatever pills drop out the dark web is often better than not being able to access it at all. Right now we basically end up going to Mexico if we can help it, where there's basically no real oversight or regulation to raise cost so long as the doc/pharmac…

> This is why I'm for total deregulation of healthcare.

Is that a good idea for an industry that seems filled with completely immoral bastards that'll screw over everyone ("they'd sell their own grandmother!") to make an extra cent, or save themselves a cent?

I could see it might be a good thing where an industry has a good reputation for fair dealing. US health care doesn't seem to fit that description though.

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

#287

Post by vkou »

eru wrote: post #250
newsclues wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations should be voluntary and exist in a market with options. I want a market where I can choose a highly regulated healthcare system or a system with no regulations and a system somewhere in between.

That's why I am in favour of more city states like Singapore, or at the very least towards pushing more responsibilities from the federal level to the state level. (The Catholics and EU call that concept 'subsidiarity', handle everything as locally as possible and have the higher levels only there to help when the lower levels can't handle it.) Eg the FDA ought be to dissolved, and replaced with state level agencies.…

> Similarly, it's good for both states to have the same or similar rules on drugs, but no need to force them

I can't wait for drugs having to be certified safe in 50 different jurisdictions, instead of one, with 50 different agencies, each with a different set of politicians putting their thumbs on the scale having their own rules for them.

That'll really bring down medical costs, and will not at all destroy the incredible economies of scale that a single 350 million person national market creates.

I also can't wait for the cross-state litigation when an upstream state's equivalent of the EPA will be paid off to allow a firm to dump toxic waste into a river, that will be poisoning the people downstream.

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

#288

Post by wolverine876 »

readyman wrote: post #283
wolverine876 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone keeps repeating it, but could you give evidence of that happening? Who are the commissioners? What about the staff?

The rich keep getting richer faster at the expense of everyone else.

That could have many causes. What evidence connects it to regulations? Usually, regulation limits excesses and can keep markets more open.

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

#289

Post by WalterBright »

krapp wrote: post #251
WalterBright wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you know the difference between free labor and slave labor.

I'm sure you know that's beside the point. Free labor isn't that free when the only alternative to trading the most useful half of your life to corporations is starvation in the streets. And the only alternative to that is dependence on a state's social safety net. Neither may be outright chattel slavery or literal feudalism but in modern society where people truly own so little, even of themselves, it isn't freedom…

Oh, it's exactly the point. You've conflated freedom with being free from want. Freedom means being free of other people forcing you to do things. You can go about satisfying your wants any way you want to, as long as you don't force others.

That's what free labor is.

If you believe you're entitled to the fruits of the labor of others, then you've enslaved them, and that's not the moral high ground.

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

#290

Post by IndySun »

IndySun wrote: post #169

Not bugs, deliberate software additions. Not bugs, intentional from v1. Not bugs, deeply contrived. Oh, sorry, wrong meeting...?

How extremely odd. I did not post this comment here, but in my comments listed, it sends me here as its parent.
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