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How Big Data Is Destroying the US Healthcare System
KindMind writes "Robert Cringely writes on the idea that technological advances have changed the health care system, and not for the better. The idea is that companies now rate individuals instead of groups, and so move to a mode of simply avoiding policies that might lose money, instead of the traditional way that insurance costs were spread over a group. From the article: 'Then in the 1990s something happened: the cost of computing came down to the point where it was cost-effective to calculate likely health outcomes on an individual basis. This moved the health insurance business from being based on setting rates to denying coverage. In the U.S. the health insurance business model switched from covering as many people as possible to covering as few people as possible — selling insurance only to healthy people who didn't much need the healthcare system.'"
Before people go apoplectic keep in mind the concept of medical tourism, where people go overseas to places like India for heart or other major surgeries for ten cents on the dollar or less, with success rates that are only marginally worse than that in the US.
There's more to competition than just nominal competitors. Hampering, even due to well-meaning regulations, transparently occurs, and to our detriment.
Go watch the Tucker film, about the guy trying to start a competitor to the big car companies in the 1950s. The big companies used every manner of regulation, requiring expensive development and lawyers and nitpicking, just to satisfy, and used it to effectively bar entry into the market.
All done 100% "in the name of the people's safety".
Fair enough, if you still wanna defend utterly massive regulation, but you pay for it in increased costs. Apparently about 5-10x in increased costs in medicine in the US.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you think the US is "laissez-faire anarcho-libertarian" you're stupider than you are a troll.
Read Moryath's post again, Gothmolly.
... the USA which is run by lunatics who still think laissez-faire anarcho-libertarian economic theory does anything ...
I suspect Moryath is quite aware of what the US really is, but is also aware that our elected representatives live in a fantasy world that reflects the reality they wish they could live in, not the reality they impose on those they "represent".
Paying $100 per week is a price point that has become acceptable
And that's the problem in a nutshell, Americans think it's acceptable to be ripped of by big business if the alternative is a government scheme has a that whiff of socialism about it.
US/AU dollars have been close to parity for a while. Currently in Australia a single man on $100K/yr pays ~$30 for UHC, a family of four with a single bread winner on $50K/yr pays ~$15/pw. And yes we are near the top of the list for "health outcomes", in fact our hard working death panels would have to work overtime to kill the extra 20K people per year it would take to catch up with the US. And yes, the government encourages you to buy private insurance if you want first dibs on a private bed, plastic tits, etc. Private insurance won't buy you better doctors, nor will it get you to the front of the queue for anything except cosmetics and a private bed. Nobody pays more that $1200/yr for medicine, once you hit that limit they are free.
For zero extra cost I get the same treatment anywhere in the EU should I fall ill while on vacation, as I did a few years back in the UK. I offered to pay the bill but the doctor just laughed and said - We have a deal with Australia to look after each other's citizens, it's only the silly Yanks who have to pay.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Long waits and second-tier care for the many, immediate boutique care for the few.
As someone who's taught many pre-med students and has family who've taught med students, I'll take a moment to dispute that point.
Almost all of the student's I've had whose primary interest was money and status were, without a doubt, the worst students in the class. They had no real interest in the subject matter and no passion for what they'd be expected to do. The idea of abandoning patients in need to give liposuction to old rich women is repulsive (in many ways) to genuinely passionate doctors. As long as normal doctors in a single payer system are making a decent salary, I would put my trust in them and not the greedy sociopaths that are so attracted to medicine today.
If you look back though history, traveling quacks were always eager to feed upon the stupid rich. It still happens in our time, too. There is no shortage of witch doctors and alternative healers. Ask Jobs... he saw it firsthand and he could afford the best medicine we have to offer.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
As a Canadian, here's the thing I don't get about the American "fear" of single-payer health care system : "Oh my god, the paperwork! And the bureaucrats that deny care!"
Now here's how it works for a Canadian : You go see a doctor, you give them your single-payer card and... That's it. There's no additional charges or paperwork to fill out, no administrative useless bullcrap. Heck I got surgery done a few years back and all I had to do was to show up at the hospital on time and show them my little card. No cash needed, no bill, just care.