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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.'"
Several years ago, I was called by the company providing the extended warranty on my appliances. The were offering me a renewal of the warranty. I said I'd only renew on the dishwasher. They responded that it was the only appliance they wouldn't cover. When I declined the extension, they reminded me that things are more likely to break the older they get.
I didn't feel like pointing out the reason they were declining coverage on the one appliance was probably because it was the only one that needed to be repaired, and twice at that. As such, it would be the most likely to fail again. And it did.
Still don't make it right though.
I'm generally not a "government solutions" kind of person, but I do wonder how private insurance is allowed to exist for essential things like health care.
How is essential defined here? Which of the following goods and services are essential?
Every single one of these things could save lives or drastically improve one's quality of life. Some of these are commercially available, some are available in hospitals, some are neither. Is it the presence of a doctor that turns some of these things into "essentials" and others into goods? Which of these should we allow profits on? If a government system does not cover any of these things, is it unethical?
If profits are unethical, should we allow profits on anything? Why?
I know this is a smarmy post—I'm not trolling, honestly. But I find people come into these conversations with a pre-existing mental framework that "health = essential" and therefore "profiting on health is unethical" without much exploration. Not everything offered in the health care industry is essential or life-saving, and many goods and services which are absolutely essential and life-saving are offered privately with no objections from anybody (e.g., refrigerators). What makes "health care" exist outside of the framework of goods and services in general? Most health care spending is dedicated to gradually improving quality of life, not saving people from axe wounds. If allowing profit and unrestricted competition is a bad way to improve people's quality of life, why are we even talking about health? Shouldn't we jump to the conclusion that anything that improves people's lives should be strictly non-profit and centrally planned?
That is only due to the US's relative geographical isolation. In Europe, if you are unhappy with the free care offered to you (typically because cosmetic treatments require long waiting times or prohibitive prices), even people who are not particularly wealthy can take a Ryanair flight a few countries over and get it done there right away for cheap. Hungary and Estonia do a brisk trade in laser eye surgery, and all of Eastern Europe is attractive for people wanting cheap dental treatments. It's not wealthy people going there, but any citizen who can pony up the paltry cost of a Ryanair flight.