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> A commercialized health care system also has absolutely no incentive to keep excess capacity for emergencies. I disagree, I'd say it's the opposite. A comme
by dingaling 7y ago
> A commercialized health care system also has absolutely no incentive to keep excess capacity for emergencies.
I disagree, I'd say it's the opposite.
A commercial system can value surge capacity for peaks just like an online retailer does; the capacity to handle extra load means extra profit.
Whereas in a public health systems like the UK NHS everything is geared towards routine operational targets such as A&E waiting times. There is no budgetary or promotional reward for having reserve capacity.
Incidentally the NHS has just identified an unintended reserve: a pool of nurses who have been sitting in nadministrative middle-management roles for years. They are being retrained and redeployed now, but it illustrates the lack of efficiency in the system. A private provider would not have 'wasted' nursing staff in those positions.
- 8note 7y agothis assumes that health care scales in the same way that an online retailer does, no? the retraining nurses is somewhat of a point in the opposite direction -- the NHS has an easy pool to pull in because of the inefficiency. if all of the nurses were being used efficiently to begin with, there would not be an easy group to bring in. scaling the number of doctors and nurses available takes a bit more time than hiring a bunch of people to put items in boxes
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y agoPrivate providers are not immune to oversights and waste.
- tryptophan 7y agoAtleast they get punished for it, unlike public systems which might get punished once every 20 election cycles.
- hellomyguys 7y ago>A commercial system can value surge capacity for peaks just like an online retailer does; the capacity to handle extra load means extra profit. Sure it can, but that's obviously not the reality and spinning up extra servers is not the same as adding extra physical rooms and beds. This analogy doesn't make any sense. >ncidentally the NHS has just identified an unintended reserve: a pool of nurses who have been sitting in nadministrative middle-management roles for years. They are being retrained and redeployed now, but it illustrates the lack of efficiency in the system. A private provider would not have 'wasted' nursing staff in those positions. You're right. A private company would just fire the nurses instead.