Amazon's Push Into Healthcare Just Cost the Industry $30 Billion In Market Cap (qz.com) 412
Today, Amazon, along with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan, announced a plan to launch an independent company that will offer healthcare services to the companies' employees at a lower cost. The venture, which will be managed by executives from the firms, will be run more like a non-profit, than a for-profit entity. Even though the plans are vague, the news caused the market value of 10 large, listed health insurance and pharmacy stocks to drop by a combined $30 billion in the first two hours of trading. Quartz reports: "The healthcare system is complex, and we enter into this challenge open-eyed about the degree of difficulty," said Amazon's Jeff Bezos in a statement. "Hard as it might be, reducing healthcare's burden on the economy while improving outcomes for employees and their families would be worth the effort. Success is going to require talented experts, a beginner's mind, and a long-term orientation." Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, likened America's mushrooming healthcare costs to "a hungry tapeworm on the American economy." How the venture will provide less pricy healthcare to the 1.2 million employees of the participating companies isn't yet clear. The new company will leverage "technology solutions" that provide "simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost." Not much else, including the name of the company, is known.
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
After all of the reasons that they have found to deny people care that need it, fuck those big boys.
Any system that gives people all the healthcare they want will bankrupt the nation. You have to ration, whether it is by price, willingness to wait in a queue, or death panels.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
+1
Much of the cost of healthcare is because people expect that because there's a treatment available, they have a "right" to it, cost be damned. Society can't afford expensive treatments which have a small probability of extending a life for a short time. Hence the GP's "all of the reasons that they have found to deny people care
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Every other civilized country works out great
Bullcrap. Every civilized country rations healthcare. Every. Single. One.
There is nowhere where you can get any treatment, on demand, at anytime, for free.
Even in Norway, a woman can't just walk in and get a breast enlargement anytime she wants, and expect someone else to pay for it.
Disclaimer: I realize that most Norwegian women don't actually need breast enlargements. It is just an example.
Re: (Score:2)
Even in Norway, a woman can't just walk in and get a breast enlargement anytime she wants, and expect someone else to pay for it.
I fail to see how that strengthens your argument. Is there one, single country that has a national health-care program that pays for breast augmentation? (Aside from the obvious worthy case of cosmetic restoration for a medically-necessary mastectomy.)
Re: (Score:2)
The U.S. uses all three.
Re: (Score:2)
... deny people care that need it.
versus
... gives people all the health care they want ...
wow. Yes, giving people all the health care they want almost certainly would bankrupt the nation. But that isn't what the PP wrote.
Someone with cancer that needs chemo is not, as near as I can tell, also getting a boob job, their teeth straightened, and a hip replacement. You're just playing on people's emotions with what is essentially a false premise. I smell a Russian troll.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously there has to be a balance. If healthcare cost me absolutely nothing (aside from whatever taxes I may pay) and I had easy access to a doctor I trusted and was confident in, I wouldn't really be that expensive....right now anyway. But if I got cancer or some other terminal conditions that's when it may get to be an issue.
Maybe basic medical checkups should come out of our pocket and the government should foot the bill for the major problems. Or maybe everyone should be guaranteed at least a mi
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with individuals paying for basic checkups while the government paying for major problems, is that it encourages people to skimp on cheap, effective early interventions. They don't go and see their primary care provider when they first develop that ache in their side, because they don't really have $100 to spare...and then that ache turns out to be something serious, and costs a shit-load more to treat because it's progressed.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with what the other poster said in reply to you.
Additionally, you may be able to see a meaningful difference between a system of mandatory savings that can only be spent on one thing that the government deems is in your interest, and taxes, but it eludes me.
Re: Good! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly why I'm okay with people dying because they can't afford insulin. "Sorry! If you needed that insulin so badly you should have been a billionaire and bought up the patents before that other guy jacked up the price. Can't all get what we want."
I see that Martin Shkreli has behaved well enough to earn access to Slashdot.
Don't drop the soap, Martin.
The NHS model and control of doctors' salaries (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK's system is widely recognised as the most efficient, so the basic model - of single payer contracting with controlled hospitals - has a lot of efficiencies to offer in the American context. In the light of the news that the arrival of an Amazon distribution centre LOWERS the wages of warehouse workers, perhaps we will see this happen to doctors...
https://www.economist.com/news... [economist.com]
compared to the US model ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes really (Score:5, Informative)
The NHS costs rather less than half the percentage of GDP that the US system does and produces better health outcomes, with 100% free coverage for citizens.
PS remember free means FREE (Score:4, Interesting)
Apart from a charge for each prescription of about $12, there are NO other copayments for most conditions. There are charges for dental and optician care, but that's pretty much it. It's not perfect; there are queues and delays, but in terms of bang for your buck, it's massively better than the US system.
Re: (Score:3)
He didn't use the word "free", dumbass. You did. It's tax-funded and it is *free at the point of care*. All economic activity is just "shuffling money around" -- turns out *how you shuffle money around* affects the cost and effectiveness of healthcare.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed more than 20 years ago when Bill Clinton was trying to get health care reform passed I read a report that said the USA spends more pushing paper around to pay medical bills than the UK spends on the NHS in it's *ENTIRETY*. Now granted the population on the USA is 5-6 times that of the UK, but that should give you reason to stop and think about how inefficient the system actually is in the USA.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yes really (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, these studies have been done time and again, and the result is that the UK spends about 7% of GDP on healthcare vs 15%+ in the US.
http://www.commonwealthfund.or... [commonwealthfund.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, no.
I'm more convinced by the McKinsey analysis that RCA begins with than the rest of that article. And the Stiglitz report it links to doesn't prove what is claimed, at all.
That's not much of an argument.
A few points:
1) Adjusted Household Disposable Income [wordpress.com] and Actual Individual Consumption [wordpress.com] are widely acknowledged by people that have studied this to be superior indicators of material living conditions. GDP is a measure of domestic production, full stop. It is not and was never intended to be a measure of resources actually available to households and it is the household perspective that matters here. GDP is often used as a proxy for these types of measures in lieu of better
The household perspective is what matters (Score:3)
In other words, "I don't have any substantive objections and my sole contribution here is to blithely paste links to widely cited documents that just about everyone has already seen". Why even bother?
I'll take science over expertise any day. I am especially wary when the so-called expert analysis is a little more than the rudimentary analysis of a bunch of kids fresh o
Re: (Score:3)
Is the NHS costing you $2,000 a month for a family of four? Because that's pretty common here.
Re: (Score:3)
I will admit... leaving patients out in the parking lot in an ambulance is a fantastic way of reducing costs... though do their turning for the worst end up counting in the final figures you claim to cite?
http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal... [bbc.co.uk]
https://www.theguardian.com/so... [theguardian.com]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal... [bbc.co.uk]
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the modern world looks at the USAs health system and just shakes their head.
Every other modern western country uses government run primary health care, usually overlaid with a smaller private system.
The private system gets used for those who want a specific surgeon, less wait time, or elective procedures.
but, in the land of the free, home of the brave, god forbid if someone who made poor health choices got treatment from my tax dollar: let the loser die or least be a debt slave for life.
Bezos should be advocating for government funded primary health care: not yet another private system.
non-profit or low-profit might be very good (Score:3)
It would be quite ironic if some billionaires will manage to basically set up socialized healthcare in the US this way, and out-compete the current HMOs!
Re:non-profit or low-profit might be very good (Score:4, Informative)
Canada has a set of per-province plans that originally covered just major injury, then were upgraded to include proactive doctor visits. The doctors are private, the hospitals are typically from bond drives in the cities and the payments are collected by employers, separate from taxes.
Works reasonably well, and backstops low-cost benefits plans the employers offer, like dental and drug plans.
For example, as a kid my parents paid into the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan, and dad campaigned door to door on a bond drive for the Chatham General Hospital. When I broke my heel, it got fixed in that same hospital, and OHIP paid for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Canada has a set of per-province plans that originally covered just major injury, then were upgraded to include proactive doctor visits. The doctors are private, the hospitals are typically from bond drives in the cities and the payments are collected by employers, separate from taxes.
Works reasonably well, and backstops low-cost benefits plans the employers offer, like dental and drug plans.
For example, as a kid my parents paid into the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan, and dad campaigned door to door on a bond drive for the Chatham General Hospital. When I broke my heel, it got fixed in that same hospital, and OHIP paid for it.
This. When I was in graduate school in Canada, I had a reconstruction of a torn ACL. Didn't pay a dime for it. (But paid taxes of course, and willingly.)
Re: (Score:2)
It varies from Province to Province. Never heard of a bond drive to finance a hospital here in BC. We still pay premiums (about $70/month for a single person with a decent income, often taken straight out of the paycheck, soon to be halved) for medical as well though it sounds like that'll be going away.
Basically the Federal government sets minimum standards and each of the Provinces run their own system.
Seems like a good call for them. (Score:5, Interesting)
I do IT for a small grocery store chain and we went self insured a few years back now and we've saved a ton of money doing it.
For a small company that only works (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to do insurance of any kind is to have as many people chip in as possible. Buying power gets rates down, and that's what's got the health care industry worried. As more and more companies consolidate an buy each other out we've got fewer and fewer employers, but that also means that if a few of them get together they can exert enormous pressure.
Of course, if you take this to it's logical conclusion the largest pool of insurable people is everybody; e.g. single payer health care. But once you've got a for profit insurance industry it's almost impossible to do away with it since they'll spend every penny they have to make sure folks don't realize they don't want or need yet another middle man.
Re: (Score:2)
Man, how big was the company? Our four store operation employs about a thousand people (a good grocery store employs a surprising number of people for those outside the industry). In the context of the company I work for we've been able to grow our pool of insured people drastically so that generally speaking only people a couple of years junior or purposely part time people like college students don't get insurance.
I suppose the nature of the company matters a lot here too though. Our founder is in the pro
Re: (Score:2)
Well stated.
From what I see, it seems like going in with a technology focus, simplifying the payment process for doctors, and destroying the highest-margin procedures with competition could have a pretty significant impact. The for-profit insurance companies don't have any real interest in getting end-user costs down, just their costs. The non-profits seem to have other challenges (those little spoken about for-profit divisions as an example).
You could save 10% over night pretty easily in my mind... maybe
Pricey vs privacy (Score:2)
How the venture will provide less pricy healthcare isn't yet clear
Unclear whether this is a typo for less pricey or less privacy. Knowing Amazon it might be both...
Re: (Score:2)
Unclear whether this is a typo for less pricey or less privacy. Knowing Amazon it might be both...
But think of the advantages of information sharing within Amazon...
Let's say you have an impacted molar. When you get home, Amazon Video might recommend you watch the SpongeBob Squarepants episode where Patrick goes to the dentist.
Just 1 thing US medicine hates more than socialism (Score:5, Interesting)
And that would be capitalism. The FUD campaign waged by medallion cab drivers against Big Bad Uber is a child's sandbox fight compared to Amazon going up against America's most monopolistic industry.
Hopefully Amazon focuses on low hanging fruit (Score:5, Insightful)
Unnecessary tests and pharmaceuticals. Doctors use unnecessary tests to protect themselves from lawsuits. Then there's the medication problem.
the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates [slashdot.org]
The government needs an independent lab to determine the expiry dates, not big pharma.
drug-firms-shipped-208-million-pain-pills-to-west-virginia-town [slashdot.org]
drug-company-payments-mirror-doctors-brand-name-prescribing [npr.org]
I also have to wonder if doctors prescribe drugs as the easy solution instead telling the patient to make lifestyle choices.
It's very smart (Score:5, Insightful)
These are big companies with lots of employees, they are already bleeding huge amounts of cash to fund health programs for their employees in a broken healthcare system. They're going to pool their resources together to create a new company, not with the goal of making money out of the venture, but with the goal of reducing the costs they already have within their existing companies. Due to their size they'll receive immediate benefits by having the clout to bargain with the big pharmas and that clout will only increase as they offer this to the rest of corporate america.
It's another game changer from Amazon.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. It's why my company sets aside some of professional development funds for exercise and wellness, because the healthier the employees are, the less sick leave they take and the more productive they are. In a tight labor market, it also can serve as good marketing to potential employees.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup... add in prescription delivery by Amazon and their purchasing power with the Pharma companies just got a lot more powerful.
And this is what's wrong with America's (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, Single Payer Now. Medicare for All.
I'll see your right wing Federalist website (Score:3)
Our health care sucks, particularly in rural areas. And you can't blame that on the US being spread out. Look at Canada. Better outcomes and just as if not more spread out population centers.
what else (Score:2)
True single payer health
The metric system
Gun Control
Re: (Score:2)
I'd love the US mandating the metric system, as should all STEM professionals.
It's called self-insurance (Score:2)
And if your risk pool is large enough and broad enough, you can save a SUBSTANTIAL amount of money.
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that your post is an oxymoron?
Self-insurance is inconsistent with a spread-out risk-pool.
Re: (Score:3)
you can save a SUBSTANTIAL amount of money.
Everyone keeps saying "You will save all this money if we socialize medicine" Bullshit.
I won't save anything. All this crap costs me far more than I spend on actual health care and I'm in my mid 60's.
I work my ass off to stay healthy. Yes, I'm an old meany who doesn't want to be forced to pay for other peoples healthcare. "What about when YOU need it?????". I want pay for what I use rather than pay a lot all the time for something I might not use.
The real goal for responsible adults should be how to red
$30B ain't shit to the health insurance industry (Score:2)
On top of that, the health insurance industry bought Washington DC years ago. They got most of their ROI in the form of the ACA back when Obama was president; they know where to turn if th
God, I hope they are successful! (Score:2)
Today Employee Healthcare, Tomorrow... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a "non-profit" though, you were fooled by choice of words. And of course the money for this will come from, wait for it...capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
The US healthcare system needs disruption (Score:5, Insightful)
If as a consumer you want to save your hard-earned dollars (e.g, you have an HSA) when you need healthcare in the US, tough luck - you can't. The US health care system is not set up to enable anything like the usual way we shop. It's like being forced to buy things on recommendation from a stranger without knowing the prices for anything until you get your credit card statement. And then experiencing utter sticker shock at the cost!
Case in point: I went to the doctor for a check up. The doctor had no idea how much it would cost me for the checkup or how much any of the recommendations she made to me would cost me. So I asked the insurance system. They couldn't give me a price or even a quote, and only pointed me to a web-based useless "calculator" that gave rough numbers. It's not surprising, because the actual cost had been negotiated by some unseen, unknown entity (my employer? the company my employer contracts with?) and it certainly wasn't ever to be shared with a lowly patient/employee. The only time I could find out how much it cost was when I received the bill. And it was outrageous! Over $200 for a simple look-see. The doctor had claimed it was the "annual checkup", which was much more expensive. Apparently, there are multiple types of check up, with the cheapest being $60, but there's no way to request that, or know what you are getting in advance. Other procedures are completely opaque too and often involve bills from multiple entities. My wife received bills from approximately 6 different entities after an ER visit for concussion, including the individual doctors, the MRI, the CT staff along with billing for various bits and pieces (tubes, packs, etc.) that apparently were used. What a load of crap.
Another area that the health care system needs to address is their methodology of tracking the status of health issues. Currently, they run completely on the squeaky-wheel system. If the wheel don't squeak, it's not an issue any more. (Doesn't matter if the wheel has crumbled into dust or not!). As engineers, if we find an issue we usually have a process to track progress to resolution. Not in the health care system! It's completely random and ad hoc. You as a patient have to manage your own "bug tracking" because no one else will. They seem to be pretty good in tactical situations, but anything that isn't an easy fix, or takes a long time isn't handled well at all.
I'm glad that this is happening. The system needs a really big kick up the butt.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't that difficult (Score:5, Insightful)
it's just no one with the authority to do so has the spine to make the decisions necessary to make it happen.
Well, that and *campaign donations* tend to ensure the status quo remains the status quo.
"Hard as it might be, reducing healthcare's burden on the economy while improving outcomes for employees and their families would be worth the effort."
The only thing you need to do is take away the health care and Big Pharma industries ability to charge whatever they want for their products or services and you'll stop this problem stone cold.
You need only speak the words that shall not be spoken ( Regulation ) within earshot of said industries and watch how quickly they'll be willing to compromise on what they charge. They do for a while until the latest scandal becomes a fleeting memory, then it's right back to business as usual.
Quit threatening it and just do it.
When a single trip to the hospital is capable of bankrupting all but the insanely rich, it's time to burn it down and rethink the issue.
I don't want, nor need, vouchers, coupons or reduced insurance premiums that do nothing but increase over the long term. Fix the problem at its source and you fix the " economic burden " it has become.
When people have more money in their pockets to spend on something other than ludicrously priced healthcare, the economy tends to benefit from it.
Re: (Score:2)
think about it this way: the ultra rich want us (the regular folks) to live in constant fear. that distracts us and keeps us in-fighting (ie, not fighting THEM or coming after them with pitchforks and fires).
they keep wages down, they hire outside the country as much as they can and they actively seek to lower the standard of living for all but their friends. reasoning is the same as above, keeps us fighting between ourselves over stupid shit. and if we're all just 1 paycheck away from being homeless, we
Solving the worlds problems.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My buddies an I often sit in front of the fire and solve the worlds problems. Healthcare is one of my favorites. We like to look at what exactly causes the high costs and address them one at a time... (Completely ignoring things that work or don't in other countries, because those are saved for discussions like "what works and doesn't in other countries") Here are some of our ideas relating to healthcare.....
Tax rebates for high cost medical equipment. This addresses the high costs of medical equipment at least a little, and helps maintain profitability in creation/manufacture/research of said tech.
Transparent pricing, no hidden fees, like every damn thing else traded for American dollars. That $.03 asprin is only $25.00 because you can't just say "no thanks, I can't afford that today.", so the market will bear any price. If it's painful, good, get your shit together healthcare. It's damn sad that I can check the costs of airfare across nearly an entire industry run mostly by brain-dead customer service people (which is also bogged down with massive regulation hoops and legal liabilities) in two minutes, but an industry run by over-schooled and highly paid professionals who are often smarter than I am can't seem to write a complete legible sentence or count past $100.00 without the insurance mans help.
Free government funded tuition for in demand medical field studies, paid for by taxes paid on medical practitioners earnings. (much like the industrial taxes I pay now pretend to cover industrial overhead) This addresses the licensed doctor shortages... For profit schools will love this shit, and the socialized education camp gets a win. Free doctor/nurse/med-tech/ect... training!
Immunity to malpractice accusations and court nonsense on all non-trivial procedures. People are going to die under the knife. You can choose to just die, or ask for help. With transparent pricing and lower overall prices, it's on the consumer to do their research when seeking a "family doctor". This all but eliminates the insurance against insurance bullshit driving costs through the roof. Personal responsibility time folks. Buyer beware. I know a LOT of people that travel to other countries to have medical procedures done and take a vacation while there- for half the price of half the care in America. They do their research before they buy a ticket. Seems to work.
State level cooperatives negotiating pharma prices, which are allowed to shop outside of the country. This addresses 500% increase games on life-saving drugs due to the captive market, and ends the market for smuggling life saving drugs that is fueling organized crime. This is so fucked up by the way... and also leads to the next one....
University and government funded research CAN NOT BE PRIVATE. Breakthroughs and moonshots in the medical field should be shared if funded on the public dime, and works and studies encouraged. Patents never granted on medicines derived from government (citizen) funded research. I've never understood how breakthroughs achieved and sciences explained/attained at state universities is not public by default. Who in the hell came up with the current system and how can they sleep at night?
I'm just another nerd pissed off about 15k emergency room visits and $30000 stillborns. I have no idea how these things would pan out, but nobody else ever seems to put forward any ideas addressing what seems to me to be the sources of the high costs of care that require the money sucking insurance companies to begin with. You gotta do more than creative accounting to fix this, and lives are at stake.
I imagine Amazon will drive costs down by sheer volume, access to data, simplicity, reliability, and scope of options. (Based on your shopping habits, you might also like.... a colonoscopy! available from these practitioners...)
The only thing more fun to discuss than American healthcare is American law enforcement. Hooo-boy do the tempers flare on that one.
But insurance companies have what patients crave! (Score:2)
Billing codes. The body mutilator!
Really though, One of the things I've said about health care is that we could easily care for patients without all that overhead. Thing is, just like Brawndo, the economy sort of depends on it. Until the plants actually start growing again, this is going to hurt.
We so need this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon.com looked at their bottom line, and they saw one very large expenditure that they had zero control over, and no ability to optimize. What do you think that was?
Employee healthcare costs!
Now, I recently had to get an albuterol inhaler. Albuterol is cheap, it was created in 1966. But inhalers, where they put a tiny bit of albuterol into an aerosol spray run like $65 after insurance contracted discount. That is INSANE!!!!
I'd be surprised if those inhalers cost more than a $1 to manufacture. So imagine, AmazonBasicsHealth offering a similar inhaler for $4. This monstrous price hike is extremely common. CPAPS are basically over-glorified aquarium air pumps. Yet, they cost around $2,000. And many who have utilized, will attest to the fact that the designs are often poorly thought out and build quality lacking. But hey, that plastic tubing is FDA approved, so you get billed $20-$80 for a hose that probably cost 79 cents.
So Amazon looking at this, can easily be like,....well we don't need to make a profit. Because, if we simply sell RX and services at cost, we can reduce our employee overhead by around 10%-15%. For Amazon, a 15% reduction of employee costs is a huge profit margin increase. And Amazon.com is big enough, that once they get it on the ball, can be very disruptive. They can go, and say to a manufacturer, we want a good CPAP for $500. If they don't relent. They design and build their own, and then sell it for $200. The companies will either have to come to the table or face eradication.
But the big thing is services....the doctors and nurses themselves. I've thought that the solution to this problem is to actually fund free medical school - with the catch being that half of a doctors time for the first 20 years or so is obligated back to either the company or community.
Re:This is a BS article.. (Score:5, Funny)
Let me restate that, you got caught responding to a headline after parsing it incorrectly and failing to read TFS or understand WTF you were talking about.
Then you replied to yourself trying to sweep your failure under the rug.
Re:This is a BS article.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me restate that... Insurance companies got caught in the market day.. Not by Amazon's roll your own insurance thing.
The overall market fell by about 1%, mostly because of the fall of the health industry, which represents about 18% of the American economy. Some health companies fell nearly 9%. If you take health out, the rest of the market barely fell at all.
I am skeptical that Amazon et al will be successful in this, but I wish them well. If the politicians can't fix healthcare, many nerds can.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I think the market was down because the bond market is taking a hit now that the Fed is trying to sell all those treasuries, which is going to drive up insurance rates, which cools down the economy, which causes the market to fall. Round and round we go.
Re: This is a BS article.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The fed is trying to cool the economy down. If it heats up to fast because of a tax cut there is zero the fed can do yo recover except for negative interest rates. All other tools have been expended.
The good news is that Europe is growing faster, and Trump's anti imigrantion stance kills manufacturing and farming, so that should drag down the economy.
Re: This is a BS article.. (Score:3)
The Fed affects the economy by raising or lowering interest rates, but this is different. The Fed is trying to unload $4.5T in treasuries that it has bought since 2009, but China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have all cut back on their purchase of treasuries, so rates are rising to make them more attractive. But this is also going to cause rates on everything else to rise, including corporate debt, with many corporations will be unable to shoulder those higher rates.
This isnâ(TM)t good.
Kaiser did this about 80 years ago (Score:5, Informative)
I am skeptical that Amazon et al will be successful in this, but I wish them well. If the politicians can't fix healthcare, many nerds can.
This has been done before, Kaiser about 80 years ago. They created their own medical care for on the job heavy construction site injuries, doctors with modern and sufficient equipment to stabilize the injured so they could be transported to a "big city" hospital. This quickly expanded to cover health care in general. Then it expanded to cover the worker's families too. And now we have a major non-profit healthcare provider covering the western US.
Re:This is a BS article.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How do health care 'er' cough, cough, make money. They charge more in premiums than they allow in payouts. Hmm, compulsory health care for company employees, how do you reduce cost, deny payouts. I doubt very strongly that if my healthcare was dependent upon a company who first and only goal were returns for shareholders and they were deciding whether they would pay out or not, that I would be willing to work for that company.
Think about euthanasia laws, how many corporations would put you down, if there return on your future employment was lower than the cost of health services, if they could get away with it (just remember all it takes is a tiny handful of them to bring in those laws, couple of hundred control freaks and no matter what tens of millions say, it happens).
Single payer sounds a whole lot better, than allowing my employer decide whether I live or die, especially when their publicly declared number one priority is returns to shareholders and their desire is ZERO payouts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Err...if you didn't allow anyone to make money (a profit) with healthcare, why would anyone go into that industry for a lively hood?
I doubt seriously there are that many altruistic people out there.
I mean, if you're a Dr...why would you sacrifice 4 years of medical school, plus internship years, plus extra years if you are specializing...on top of college, if you didn't see a payoff in the end that was worth your sacrifice up front?
Why would anyo
Re: This is a BS article.. (Score:2)
Re:This is a BS article.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice miss-interpretation, make a lot of money in the industry do you?
As I am *sure* you know, your example is BS.
There is plenty of competition at the staff level, so income is in general sensible.
There is practically NO competition at the insurer/provider level. This has been remove from the system through regulatory capture and other techniques for a lot time now, and the price is being paid.
If there is no competition, then the consumer suffers, and 'suffers' in the context of health is, eventually, dies early.
So, the cost of the high profits of insurers and providers is the deaths of consumers.
Care to try and defend that?
The only two solutions are enforced REAL competition (which does not mean two 'friendly' huge providers colluding), or state regulation of prices.
Solution # 3 (Score:2)
Re:Solution # 3 (Score:5, Informative)
The German system is dual: with both private insurance and public. Not ideal, but at least it pretty much always functions, without the horrors of privatisation.
Re: (Score:3)
There is practically NO competition at the insurer/provider level. This has been remove from the system through regulatory capture and other techniques for a lot time now, and the price is being paid.
Brilliant! THANK YOU! And yes, I meant to use all caps for that.
Finally someone who understands what has happened to our government.
I'm tired of hearing the term "big government" or the claim that it's the source of all our problems. That is a distraction from the real cause which is big business which now essentially owns the government. That allows them to generate the influence to effect regulatory capture. This is why people have been saying "we are owned."
For me, the day "Citizens Divided" passed was t
Re: This is a BS article.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
s/healthcare/law enforcement/. Funny thing, there's plenty of cops out there.
s/healthcare/military service/. There's plenty of soldiers. Literally an army of them.
Your logic seems a bit flawed somewhere.
P.S. "livelihood". One word. It's not some kind of headgear.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Their intentions aren't so honorable. They're just trying to break up the demand for real universal health care.
Just curious, how do you figure? Of course their intentions are anything less than honorable. They're trying to boost their own bottom lines.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Interesting)
Although with how Amazon works if they can make it work for their employees you can bet there will be public offerings as well.
Indeed. AWS started as an internal service. Today, Amazon is primarily a Cloud Provider, that just happens to do online retailing on the side. AWS makes 3 times the profit of their retail operations.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Obama failing to hold out for single payer and settling for Romneycare is what cost you. Countries with actual single payer systems spend half or less per capita with better outcomes for all.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:4, Insightful)
It might do better if it was allowed to negotiate drug prices. Beyond that, I made clear I was speaking of OTHER COUNTRIES that have single payer. Does medicaid fit that description?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
America has higher prices mostly because we pay for most of the world's medical research. Sure, there's some overhead from insurance companies (mostly from the lack of standardized claims reporting - the government should fix that), but that's only one factor. Higher drug prices (in the private sector) is a big part of that: it pays to acquire the pharma startups that do the actual research (much like the big tech companies rarely invent anything, but they buy tech startups for crazy amounts, which in tur
Re: (Score:3)
So it seems if we want to spread that more fairly around the western world, we will need to similarly clamp down on prices. It's the only way to make the rest of the world pay their fair share.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Interesting)
I find this argument hilarious given Democrats had both Congress and the Presidency and when it was passed nobody said anything about keeping costs down.
It's only hilarious because the Democrats let the Republicans have a seat at the table. So how come the Republicans couldn't repeal it with both houses and the presidency?
Health care is the Gordian Knot of US economy and society. The left struggles to involve the government selectively in order to bend the cost-curve downwards. And the right tries to fix the problem by opening up the private sector. Obamacare was a herculean attempt to join those two propositions, and it just made it past the post, with the barely-required 60 votes in the senate. Republicans discovered that moving in the other direction was just as difficult, and failed repeatedly to change anything. (Except for repealing the individual mandate, which amounts to sabotage rather than reform.)
Meanwhile, all other industrialized nations have realized what the US may never realize: you need a national health-care plan to ensure that everyone gets care at a reasonable cost. The left would love to see that happen. The right sees it as fire-breathing Marxism, and fights with all it has to keep it from happening.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that the main opposition political right has to national health care plan is that it will significantly raise taxes on everyone, while lowering the quality for the top payers.
Which is true. That is how socialized medicine works. To most of us across Europe, that is an acceptable deal. US has a much more "free do succeed or fail" spirit, which makes it unacceptable.
Even here in Finland, if you want high quality care in many fields, you have to go to private sector. We're considered what, top 3 of the most efficient medical system in the world, and right now, it's quite grim. I had to book an appointment for dentist to check my teeth for my once-every-two-years dentist check (they won't allow you to have them more often, and yearly check is done by a hygienist, not a doctor). They couldn't even give me a date when it would happen. Six months wait minimum I was told, and they'll tell me some time in the future when my place in queue is up which of the local private providers I will have to go to to get my teeth checked and when.
Or I can just go pay a lot of money at a private clinic. Being healthy and never really having had any significant teeth problems throughout my life, I don't need to bother. Most people, not so much. So they pay an arm and a leg for private care. Care quality will be the same, because guess what? It's a "purchased service", which is the phrase used for "regional government (which has to provide universal healthcare) buys the service from private sector".
Situation is better for GP, where I only had to wait about a month for my yearly appointment to get a basic health check. Specialist care? Same thing as with teeth checks. Expect three to six months wait, where you can't even ask for specific date for an appointment. You're just given one at some point, and if you don't like it, back in the end of the queue you go. For this reason, private health insurance for children has skyrocketed. You can wait to get medical care for yourself, but your child? Not so much.
And if you're employed at a sizable company, guess what? You get private healthcare because it's mandated by law, to be paid by your employer. Which doesn't have those queue times.
So to pretend that there aren't pros to private-only system is folly. You need to understand that there are pros and cons to each system, and when you misrepresent this in an attempt to sell universal health care, you'll get overwhelming rejection when people notice that they have been fooled. Not a good long term strategy, as people are discovering with "you get to keep your doctor" and other Obamacare debacles in US. Be honest, inform people of pros and cons of each system, and put it to a national vote. I imagine you could probably win that one on universal healthcare. Time seems to be ripe for that in US.
Because in the end, the best system is to have public system that ensures that everyone is provided with minimum healthcare level that lets people stay productive.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Informative)
Top payers in medical care are not a mythical one percent. It's closet to universal 20/80 distribution. Weatlhiest people paying most into the system tend to also be healthiest, and vice versa.
This is something we tend to discover in countries with universal health care. Wealthy and healthy people get annoyed that they pay a lot of taxes, and they still have to sit five hours in ER queue with all the junkies and alcoholics. It's a real problem. So they end up paying extra on top of the high taxes paying for universal health care. And then they wonder why is it that they have to pay for public healthcare which they don't use.
Which provides them with incentives to vote for the parties that essentially push to defund public sector in favour of private one. Which is now the most popular party in my country, in some part due to this. It's a genuine problem in long term, and your denials of this will create problem on your end, because while you can refuse to address reality, you cannot refuse to address consequences of your denial of reality.
That is why your desperate attempt to build a caricature out of my arguments so you can easily debunk them is not constructive. You're the one who needs to win hearts and minds to get universal healthcare to pass in US. I already have it and I wholeheartedly support it for US, so strawmanning my points on the negatives of the system will not convince anyone who isn't already on your side, and will most certainly alienate those that aren't, because they can actually read my points, and see that you're not actually addressing them.
And by the way. US is not a "private only" system. Emergency care is still universal. Child healthcare is still universal. Elderly care is still universal.
Re: (Score:3)
Then you should be able to name the specific provisions or amendments which came as a direct result of a republican sitting at the table... and not general hand waving towards Romney and Massachusetts.
Nice attempt at distraction... but I think we are still talking about the original enactment... and not the failed attempts to repeal it in w
Re: Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:2, Troll)
The entire selling point of going with Romneycare was to preserve the Democrat's control of Congress. It didn't work, but that was the real argument. Obama and the Democrats would rather stay in power than give us decent healthcare.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
And worse (for the Democrats)... helped to lead to the wiping out massive portions of their backbench and bullpen for years to come as a result of their narrow mindedness.
Obama's legacy, may just end up being the difficulty the Democrats have fielding a viable candidate for the Presidency for years to come.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you can by looking at comparable economies and/or by judging in terms of the country's GDP.
Note how those other countries spend less of their GDP on healthcare and how their populations last longer. Before you claim it's better eating habits, have a look at the U.K.
Honestly, no sane person honestly thinks any Western nation spends more on healthcare than the U.S. and no sane person honestly thinks health outcomes in the U.S. are even in the top ten.
Re:Don't let 'im kiss ya, Hawkeye (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's just a coincidence that EVERY country with a single payer system spends less than the U.S. on healthcare per capita than the U.S.?
When you pull the door and it doesn't open, do you keep pulling or do you try pushing?
I see that health care costs are going up all over, but looking at Canada for example, the rise flattened out for a while when single payer came into effect. So even as costs went up, they went up slower with single payer. Of course, with an increasing population, increase in expendature is to be expected. The U.S. could use slower increases in expenditure for a while.
So let's look at a larger sample [wikipedia.org]. Indeed, it's going up for everyone, but nowhere is it going up faster than the U.S. and nowhere is it as expensive as the U.S. Can you explain why the U.S. would be a special case other than we are the one without a single payer system?
They say you get what you pay for, so the U.S. should be at the top of the charts [thepatientfactor.com] for healthcare. OOOOps, or not.
Well, Americans must live longer [wikipedia.org] and so cost more. Dang, wrong again.
Looks more like a fool and his money are soon parted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You apparently don't know how averages work. Think about it a minute and you'll see your mistake, I'll wait....
Next up, they also don't t have to pay an insurance company for their health insurance. Would you rather send a private corporation $1000/month or send the public insurance $500/month for the same service. Cue Jeopardy music...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't have to nationalize anything, but the government should be allowed to compete. Then we can have more clout in determining prices and services. The law you speak of was specifically set up to benefit the insurance industry. Through a much older law, the government is specifically prohibited from negotiating for better pharma prices. These are the things, among others, that make medicine expensive in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should not have considered that as your money in the first place? You have your life savings in something that is not risk-free. Oh well.
Re:First time I think Buffet is stupid!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that like it's their fault. Think of the stock market as a big grid on the ground and a million chickens. Occasionally someone tosses in a handful of corn and occasionally someone blows and air horn. The chickens respond as chickens will.
You pick a square or two on the grid. At the end of the day, if your square has the most chickens on it, you win a prize.
It's a bit like no limits cow patty bingo for city folks. If you don't believe me, how come 3 guys making noise in the corner caused such a change in the market?
Periodically, the SEC makes a move to keep the market moving. The decision making process can be a bit confusing. Here's a helpful video [youtube.com].
Re: First time I think Buffet is stupid!! (Score:2)
You can make better investments.