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Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

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Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#161

Post by maerF0x0 »

DrScientist wrote: post #116
maerF0x0 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you about Infant genital mutilation (circumcision) but disagree the issue is the doctors themselves. I think the shrinking pool of competition is the major issue. (Hospitals being privatized with VC money etc)

> but disagree the issue is the doctors themselves Who's fault was the opioid epidemic in the US? I know a lot of blame has been levelled at the pharma involved, and rightly so, however every single one of those patients that got hooked via prescriptions had them from their doctor. Those doctors aren't suppose to be automatons, just blindly follow Pharma marketing materials, they are suppose to be highly paid experts…

There's a cluster of issues and, as an engineer, I've learned to focus less on the final actor and more on the roots that lead to that outcome.

1. Why are high risk drugs not a multiparty sign off? (think like company financial controls)

2. Why are doctors saddled with such intense debt that they then are financially pressured to make unethical choices? (School seats not scaling with population, and doctors organizations lobbying for supply side restrictions)

3. Why are people turning to opioids? (Globalism that sent their jobs abroad without care, poverty/familial/societal degradation in regions -- basically the anti-rat park scenario, in some populations it's exacerbated by the idea a white person cannot be poor/oppressed such that their issues are exacerbated by their denial)

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#162

Post by ajross »

Taikonerd wrote: post #157
ajross wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point was there are lots of models available, not just 2. My post above wasn't endorsing one in particular. Yeah, so... my question stands: name one you're thinking of, even if you qualify that it isn't an "endorsement". I contend there isn't one and you're fooling yourself.

Name a healthcare model that's neither a 100% free-market model, nor a fully-socialized model like the NHS? OK, how about... * Medicare in the US (single-payer, private providers) * Medicare Advantage in the US (government provides capitated payments to competing private companies, which then do all the administration work) * The Singaporean system (complicated, but revolves around mandatory payments to HSAs) etc.

That seems like a strawman. Upthread you were pretty clearly arguing from a libertarian perspective (I genuinely thought that your "only NHS" quip was humor, not that you were being literal -- the article obviously doesn't say that at all).

Now you're saying I'm wrong because there are other socialized forms than NHS that work too. Well, OK! I submit. Use one of those.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#163

Post by Taikonerd »

ajross wrote: post #162
Taikonerd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a healthcare model that's neither a 100% free-market model, nor a fully-socialized model like the NHS? OK, how about... * Medicare in the US (single-payer, private providers) * Medicare Advantage in the US (government provides capitated payments to competing private companies, which then do all the administration work) * The Singaporean system (complicated, but revolves around mandatory payments to HSAs) etc.

That seems like a strawman. Upthread you were pretty clearly arguing from a libertarian perspective (I genuinely thought that your "only NHS" quip was humor, not that you were being literal -- the article obviously doesn't say that at all). Now you're saying I'm wrong because there are other socialized forms than NHS that work too. Well, OK! I submit. Use one of those.

I think that you misread my earlier post -- I'm not endorsing a libertarian approach. I was just saying that the Cato Institute presumably would.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#164

Post by sershe »

It's really understandable that this is posted on hacker news, where innovators from public healthcare startup hotspots like the UK and France gather to look with pity at their stagnating counterparts stuck with more private systems like the US, or even Netherlands or Switzerland if only Europe is considered.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#166

Post by throw10920 »

akramachamarei wrote: post #133
jmyeet wrote: post #93

> 1 in 4 American workers stay in their jobs because of the healthcare. It suppresses wages and working conditions - and prevents innovators from heading out on their own. Yes. That is the point . This is how capitalism works. Just look at the story of Tetris as the pefect example of capitalism in action. Some Soviet programmers invented it in their spare time when they had access to computers, as enthusiasts. What d…

> Soviet programmers invented it in their spare time when they had access to computers, as enthusiasts. What did capitalism add? Capitalism created the computers whose Soviet copies were Tetris' native platform, it made the languages Pajitnov used and the machines he ported it to. It incentivized people to bring Tetris to the rest of the world, and who knows, it might have spread on its own eventually, just for free,…

> Capitalism created the computers whose Soviet copies were Tetris' native platform, it made the languages Pajitnov used and the machines he ported it to. It incentivized people to bring Tetris to the rest of the world, and who knows, it might have spread on its own eventually, just for free, but maybe not.

Yeah, GP's claim here was kind of insane. It's trivial to go look up lists of the 100 biggest innovations of the past 100 years (or whatever) and 90-99% of them were capitalism.

Re: Private healthcare makes industries less innovative. It's time for change

#167

Post by Ajedi32 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #156
mminer237 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only tax incentive for employers is deducting it as a business expense. I.e., paying with pre-tax income. Individuals can also do that if self-employed. Individuals are the one with huge tax benefits under the ACA. Last year, the government paid 73% of my health insurance premiums as a tax credit.

"if self-employed" is a big if here

Yeah and to be more precise the problem isn't really that individuals don't get tax incentives for buying their own plan, it's that employers don't get tax incentives for giving individuals money to buy their own plans, only for buying a plan for them.

So even if you could get a tax break for buying your own health insurance, you'd still have to give up a bunch of free money from your employer in order to take advantage of that, which isn't realistic.

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