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> In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes >but no investment in increasing hospital capacity Agree, where did all the b
by aantix 5y ago
> In the US, the hospital system, at least the ERs were already running on fumes
>but no investment in increasing hospital capacity
Agree, where did all the billions go? The most expensive healthcare on the planet and we can't find the money to scale and expand a year and a half later.
- twox2 5y agoI mean, every hospital director needs at least three vacation homes and two boats right?
- mikeyouse 5y agoWe have this whole additional trillion-dollar industry that other countries don't .. nearly every dollar of our healthcare spending flows through insurance companies who add zero value to actual health care but have hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of billions in salary to pay. Health insurers know their time in the crosshairs is coming which is why they're buying up pharmacy groups and providers, to give their offerings a sheen of actual care.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoHealth insurers (better called managed care organizations) are politically locked in. Politicians get to use them as scapegoats, and there is no way voters in the US accept taxpayer funded healthcare. Someone has to be the bad guy and allocate the limited amount of healthcare resources available, and I see no reason why the existing relationship of government makes the rules allocating the care, but MCO implements them and takes the heat would change. Traders also seem to think the same given the gains in MCO market caps. Also, all the MCOs have profit margins of 5% or less, so this game of punting responsibility costs relatively little in the grand scheme of things. At the root of it all is a demand for healthcare that far outstrips supply, and so these obfuscations are useful in making sure certain socioeconomic classes are able to attain a greater share of it than others.
- octaonalocto 5y agoThe average salary of a US hospital director is $125k. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/healthcare-director-salar...
- twox2 5y agoI don't think kick backs, etc. are usually reported salary.
- iammisc 5y agoMany states ban new hospitals from starting without the approval of other hospitals. NO one wants to effect actual change, preferring instead to deal with superficial attempts to deal with the problem. That being said, hospitals have not been overwhelmed in the United States. The emergency hospitals we did build mainly went unused.