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Most people don’t realize that hospitals typically run at 98%+ capacity in the winter in a pre-COVID environment. This maximizes their profitability and allows

Most people don’t realize that hospitals typically run at 98%+ capacity in the winter in a pre-COVID environment. This maximizes their profitability and allows them to operate relatively at a loss for the rest of the year.

ajuc 5y ago
This varies greatly between countries. In many countries hospitals don't have profits - they operate like courts or army with yearly budgets assigned by the government.
maxerickson 5y ago
Michigan has certificates of need for hospital beds. Capacity is centrally planned (no doubt the incumbents are good friends with their regulators). That's in addition to the games CMS plays with Medicare certification and funding.
toolz 5y ago
Pre-covid, if you picked a random hospital at a random point in time in the U.S. there was a 16% chance it would be at max capacity and something like a 30% chance it would be over 80% capacity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840149/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840149/ It amazes me that hospitals are shutting down, healthcare worker numbers have barely recovered to 2018 numbers, bed capacity is shrinking in many areas and even still people think we have a healthcare crisis. We've created 80% of all dollars ever created in the past two years. We have the money. It seems obvious (to me, anyways) our healthcare spending would explode in that sector and solve simple issues like capacity and worker shortage, if in fact that was an issue to begin with.
- zrail 5y ago
  Healthcare workers take many years to train. When they die of COVID, go on long term disability because of long COVID, or burn out because they can't mentally handle watching another willfully unvaccinated person die, that person is irreplaceable in the short term.
  - toolz 5y ago
    HCW aren't on the decline because of any of those things (at least not primarily). This is made abundantly clear by looking at the steep dropoff in march of 2020 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS HCWs are below where they would otherwise be because of policy. Aside from that, long covid is psychosomatic. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... which means the root cause of long covid is likely misinformation about long covid to begin with (thanks "The Atlantic", for scaring everyone into being sick)

ajuc 5y ago

This varies greatly between countries. In many countries hospitals don't have profits - they operate like courts or army with yearly budgets assigned by the government.

maxerickson 5y ago

Michigan has certificates of need for hospital beds. Capacity is centrally planned (no doubt the incumbents are good friends with their regulators). That's in addition to the games CMS plays with Medicare certification and funding.

toolz 5y ago

Pre-covid, if you picked a random hospital at a random point in time in the U.S. there was a 16% chance it would be at max capacity and something like a 30% chance it would be over 80% capacity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840149/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840149/ It amazes me that hospitals are shutting down, healthcare worker numbers have barely recovered to 2018 numbers, bed capacity is shrinking in many areas and even still people think we have a healthcare crisis. We've created 80% of all dollars ever created in the past two years. We have the money. It seems obvious (to me, anyways) our healthcare spending would explode in that sector and solve simple issues like capacity and worker shortage, if in fact that was an issue to begin with.

zrail 5y ago
Healthcare workers take many years to train. When they die of COVID, go on long term disability because of long COVID, or burn out because they can't mentally handle watching another willfully unvaccinated person die, that person is irreplaceable in the short term.
- toolz 5y ago
  HCW aren't on the decline because of any of those things (at least not primarily). This is made abundantly clear by looking at the steep dropoff in march of 2020 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS HCWs are below where they would otherwise be because of policy. Aside from that, long covid is psychosomatic. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... which means the root cause of long covid is likely misinformation about long covid to begin with (thanks "The Atlantic", for scaring everyone into being sick)