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CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

nytimes.com

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Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#11

Post by ch4s3 »

winslow wrote: post #6
rhizome wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch out for Engineer's Disease.

Could you elaborate?

Engineer's Disease refers to specialists in one field assuming that they can speak with authority some other unrelated field. Healthcare in the US is notoriously complex and complicated, it would be naive to assume Amazon's success in distribution, ecommerce, and cloud services would necessarily translate to health care.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#12

Post by sheraz »

ch4s3 wrote: post #11
winslow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate?

Engineer's Disease refers to specialists in one field assuming that they can speak with authority some other unrelated field. Healthcare in the US is notoriously complex and complicated, it would be naive to assume Amazon's success in distribution, ecommerce, and cloud services would necessarily translate to health care.

True, but there is a lot of low hanging fruit in the digital health space that amazon is especially efficient at.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#13

Post by stfp »

winslow wrote: post #6
rhizome wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch out for Engineer's Disease.

Could you elaborate?

Because Bezos is good at playing whatever competitive/industrial game he's playing at doesn't mean he can "fix health care"

Also countries that have reasonable policies don't have them because of Jeff Bezos or any single "savior" (industrial or political maven), outside of a few (but well known) exceptions; in many ways, our "faith in science" (lol) and the next high tech tweak is preventing us from delivering pragmatic, proven, reasonable solutions today

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#14

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #11
winslow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate?

Engineer's Disease refers to specialists in one field assuming that they can speak with authority some other unrelated field. Healthcare in the US is notoriously complex and complicated, it would be naive to assume Amazon's success in distribution, ecommerce, and cloud services would necessarily translate to health care.

[deleted]

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#15

Post by dqpb »

Karnickel wrote: post #9
winslow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate?

For example, https://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Enginee... > ...used to describe engineers and other technical folks assuming their technical knowledge of systems (usually computer, mechanical/electrical) gives them expertise in solving other complex issues. Most of health care is a power/influence and social problem: Who gets to control things, who gets the money, who gets influence over the stream…

Politics and power struggles don't build systems, they build shit-shows. Engineers build systems.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#16

Post by IBM »

A big chunk of the health care industry is the oligopoly of distributors. There's only 3 of them: McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal. If Amazon can bring much needed competition to that part of the healthcare market it'd help bring prices down. CVS is moving up the stack because they're afraid of Amazon entering the industry. They're combining a retailer, PBM and now a health insurer. Personally I think it should be blocked because the last thing the health care industry needs is more concentration, but it will likely pass because of the nonsense (Bork-created) antitrust regime of the past 40 years.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#17

Post by coredog64 »

rhizome wrote: post #5
godzillabrennus wrote: post #3

Hopefully this helps consumers. I doubt it though. Seems like it’s going to take Jeff Bezos to fix healthcare in America.

Watch out for Engineer's Disease.

It's not just engineers. There's a reason the Beech Bonanza has been nicknamed "The Doctor Killer" for decades.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#18

Post by cdolan »

LeoJiWoo wrote: post #10

Well I hope this a good thing, and won't lead to price gouging. The trend of corporate consolidation is concerning, we need more monopoly busting, and anti-trust investigations.

I agree the trend is concerning, but what data are you basing the “need” for monopoly busting and anti trust investigations off of??

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#19

Post by anilshanbhag »

Many are questioning if this move will help consumers. I think it will. Aetna is the third largest insurer and CVS is soon to be second largest pharmacy chain. Pharmacies provide basic care at lower cost, many insurance companies are moving Prescription Benefit Managers (PBMs) in-house to lower cost. By combining the two: CVS is able to get more customers for PBM due to Aetna and distribute the cost over a larger base of patients, Aetna maybe be able to reduce costs per customer and better compete with larger insurance firms - its a win-win and a win for consumers.

Re: CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

#20

Post by whatshisface »

cdolan wrote: post #18
LeoJiWoo wrote: post #10

Well I hope this a good thing, and won't lead to price gouging. The trend of corporate consolidation is concerning, we need more monopoly busting, and anti-trust investigations.

I agree the trend is concerning, but what data are you basing the “need” for monopoly busting and anti trust investigations off of??

It sounds like he's thinking about all the times this has happened in the past.
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