51–60 of 191 posts
They don't clarify though, the costs of running a sufficiently-advanced multiple-effect distiller, dealing with the FDA, WHO and whomever else forces them to... these costs could definitely add up, no? What do you think the bar is for entering the market of providing water for injection? Who's there to make it costlier, maybe the insurance oligopoly can hold some of the blame for this as well...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why the overall size of the population is relevant here. If it works for countries with populations of 5 million (Norway), 63 million (UK), 82 million (Germany), and 126 million (Japan), I think it's completely reasonable to at least try it in a country of 319 million.
Ethnic homogeneity is also an issue. If you think that an arab living in france gets the same quality of healthcare as a european french person at the same poverty level, you're kidding yourself. Not that the US doesn't have these problems. Ultimately, different ethnicities get different diseases, too, so the bureaucrats in charge of deciding what gets covered and to what extent are basically institutionalizing racia…
Funnily enough, medic in French is an Arabic loanword, toubib.
Also, I am not sure how you think the French health system works, but at every level through it there are enough people of Arabic background in it that your idea of there being massive differences in health care for people of Arabic background in France seems unlikely. It is true that there will be instances of racism, however I think that you are pretty far off the mark here in general.
"Ultimately, different ethnicities get different diseases, too, so the bureaucrats in charge of deciding what gets covered and to what extent are basically institutionalizing racial privilege."
There is some variation in susceptibility to disease between different ethnicities, sure, but there is such a large and established Arabic population in France that it would make no sense for the health service to be acting in the way you are suggesting.
Also what particular diseases are you talking about? As far as I am aware there has been so much mixing between Arabic populations and European ones over history that the differences are not really all that great, especially when you look at the differences in care required anyway for two individuals from the same ethnic background.
At the end of the day, given that the French health system gets some of the best ratings in the world and that France also has a very large amount of people who are not of European ancestry, it would be very hard for there be a vast gulf in care based on the ancestry of such a sizeable percentage of the population, otherwise France simply would not hold those ratings.
Out of interest, how much time have you spent in France? I have been there a few times, some of my family have lived there for several years and I am currently sharing a house with someone French, who is not of European background.
So this is by design isn't it? The fact that insurance covers everything and the hospitals do not have to eat up any costs begs for this to happen. If the majority of customers (patients) pay out of their pocket then the hospitals would be incetivized to make themselves attractive to patients. Else why the hell do they care? In fact they mark up prices multiple times to offset any unforeseen costs of eating up costs…
Serious question: why do you think that hospitals don't have to eat costs? It's a loaded question in the sense that I've been at various hospitals and they always talk about their budget shortfall which is in part due to non-reimbursed care provided to those who cannot pay and/or have no insurance. But it's also not a loaded question in the sense that I want to understand why people would think hospitals don't eat co…
I keep getting that feeling that something must be done. Any suggestions HN readers?
Preferably with a lead pipe.
It's always in the seller's interest to create a complex and opaque system of pricing, especially when the buyer doesn't even pay for the services. This is why free markets aren't the answer to everything. It's free and open markets that drive efficiency out of any process. The problem here is one of incentives. If I promise to pay you for mowing your neighbor's lawn, and he rarely reviews what you're doing and I rar…
I've noticed convoluted pricing happens in these industries for consumers: - Airfare - Cell phones - Many telecom services - Banking & finance - Healthcare - Lawyers? - Accountants? One common pattern they have is they're prone to monopoly effects either through regulation or network effects.
Many in this thread are claiming that price fixing wouldn't occur in a "truly free" market. This is misty-eyed naivety. In a completely deregulated free market, it is even more in the hospitals' interest to form a price-fixing cartel. Any new player in the market trying to set reasonable market prices could be excluded through market pressure tactics (eg, tell distributors don't sell to them or our cartel will no lon…
Even if there were perfect competition, it doesn't matter much, people don't comparison shop for ERs. If you are having a heart attack, you're not in a position to compare prices at local hospitals.
There was a similar thread a few weeks back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258597
It'd be great if the HN community started throwing out some ideas for disrupting this behemoth.
Many in this thread are claiming that price fixing wouldn't occur in a "truly free" market. This is misty-eyed naivety. In a completely deregulated free market, it is even more in the hospitals' interest to form a price-fixing cartel. Any new player in the market trying to set reasonable market prices could be excluded through market pressure tactics (eg, tell distributors don't sell to them or our cartel will no lon…
Many in this thread are claiming that price fixing wouldn't occur in a "truly free" market. This is misty-eyed naivety. In a completely deregulated free market, it is even more in the hospitals' interest to form a price-fixing cartel. Any new player in the market trying to set reasonable market prices could be excluded through market pressure tactics (eg, tell distributors don't sell to them or our cartel will no lon…
I like to think of myself as a free markets guy, but driving healthcare via the market seems like the worst, most cynical application of the concept possible.
Many in this thread are claiming that price fixing wouldn't occur in a "truly free" market. This is misty-eyed naivety. In a completely deregulated free market, it is even more in the hospitals' interest to form a price-fixing cartel. Any new player in the market trying to set reasonable market prices could be excluded through market pressure tactics (eg, tell distributors don't sell to them or our cartel will no lon…
How do you explain other free markets that obviously deliver quality products at low prices? I don't feel gouged when I buy a television, a cell phone or lumber at Home Depot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turn healthcare into a government bureaucracy. Because that's an effective way to combat waste, inefficiency, and overcharging
at least all our patient data will be private. If we keep all of our private information in the hands of the HMOs and other corporations, the NSA might install a backdoor.
These are non-technical people, who went to school mostly for biology and chemistry, or for the lowly clerks, and secretaries in your doctor's office, maybe two years of community college, with an associates degree in communications maybe. On average, take a random sample of the people who do the paper work for the lofty, priest-like physicians. Ask them what AES is, or what a SHA hash is, or even what SSL and TLS are. I guarantee you, that you'll get a blank stare.
They know how to use the systems they're provided with, like they know how to open a bag of Oreo cookies. The doctors know how to pay IT professionals for services, like they know how to write a check, and know to procure electronic systems like they know how to make down payments on their Mercedes. You can be sure that they know how to shred all those e-mails that they print out and read over their morning coffee.
It's only as private insofar as no one is supposed to look. This protects people under the law, in that, as a rule, certain information is not to be used as criteria for making certain business decisions. But this is merely a bureaucratic honor system, and it doesn't mean that people aren't aware of things they aren't supposed to know about. The information itself, frequently, isn't particularly "secure" according to more strenuous information security standards. Your credit card transactions are safer than your HIPAA information by a longshot, but mostly because there really isn't any sort of criminal profit motive behind obtaining and using that sort of information.