2 ms·

People feel that politics are tedious, but this is exactly the reason to pay attention. Look farther than your case and systematically review overall national s

by dv_dt 9y ago

People feel that politics are tedious, but this is exactly the reason to pay attention. Look farther than your case and systematically review overall national stats of healthcare costs in the US vs other nations. We pay the most of any developed nation, double on average other developed nations, almost triple the best run healthcare of other nations. We not only pay much much more, people die sooner and go bankrupt more under this system for completely preventable reasons. Edit: And great that there might be a new value conscious private competitor out there - but I'd note that all those other developed nations that are individually, collectively, and vastly outperforming our health system all have some form of government control on drug and procedure prices. And a single private company would be very hard pressed to replicate the negotiation leverage of a government. I'd also note that I'd trust JPMorgan about nil to be concerned about customer value over company profits. Other nations have a health system, and at the end of the day we have a health market.

indemnity 9y ago
One of the nastiest things in the failed TPP from my perspective were provisions to make illegal a government agency in my country that successfully keeps costs of medication down by forcing competition and negotiating strongly. The numbers are small by world standards but I guess the drug companies are paranoid of this idea catching on in, say the US. I’m sure it will be regarded as communism, but hey, it makes the market actually work for us here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac
- dv_dt 9y ago
  I think it would have been incredibly foolish and costly for your government to sign onto that provision. It's funny that the arguments seem about single or multi or hybrid public private billing arrangements here - but if you look across the national stats, all of those arrangements perform better - because a root cause that I think there are in those nations, a regulation of cost by medical experts in that nation vs efficacy of various drugs and/or procedures. The dream that somehow laymen off the street can shop for medical care like shopping for a pair of socks and that would balance the market in price or knowledge of derived value is really naive in my eyes.

by dv_dt 9y ago

indemnity 9y ago

One of the nastiest things in the failed TPP from my perspective were provisions to make illegal a government agency in my country that successfully keeps costs of medication down by forcing competition and negotiating strongly. The numbers are small by world standards but I guess the drug companies are paranoid of this idea catching on in, say the US. I’m sure it will be regarded as communism, but hey, it makes the market actually work for us here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac

dv_dt 9y ago
I think it would have been incredibly foolish and costly for your government to sign onto that provision. It's funny that the arguments seem about single or multi or hybrid public private billing arrangements here - but if you look across the national stats, all of those arrangements perform better - because a root cause that I think there are in those nations, a regulation of cost by medical experts in that nation vs efficacy of various drugs and/or procedures. The dream that somehow laymen off the street can shop for medical care like shopping for a pair of socks and that would balance the market in price or knowledge of derived value is really naive in my eyes.