4 ms·
Middlemen and gatekeepers are all over our medical industry. When I travel I am always surprised at how much easier it is to get drugs outside the US. Many pres
by throwawaysea 5y ago
Middlemen and gatekeepers are all over our medical industry. When I travel I am always surprised at how much easier it is to get drugs outside the US. Many prescription drugs here are over the counter elsewhere and much cheaper. I hope we start removing prescription gatekeeping more broadly, so I can stop paying hundreds for performative office visits that offer no value. It’s also a big time sink just to get some mundane antibiotic or skincare cream or whatever, when all that happens is that an FNP runs through the most basic Q&A script that can be self discovered online.
- LocalH 5y agoCapitalism (as a life goal, rather than one of many tools in a toolkit) is what makes all that possible. If can insert yourself in the middle of a transaction, and do that long enough, then you can get pretty entrenched to the point where people just expect it to be that way. I maintain that, if automobiles were invented today, the horse-and-buggy industry would be able to successfully fend them off, based on the path regulatory capture has taken in the last 150 years.
- tpmx 5y agoThere's plenty of capitalism happening in the countries where these things are readily available. Cronyism is the word should have been looking for.
- LocalH 5y agoPerhaps I should have said "societal goal". The stark contrast between those countries, and the US, is that the US collectively has this unwavering dedication to capitalism above all else, it seems in practice.