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>The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no
by LiquidSky 3y ago
>The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
- elcritch 3y agoOne could say he was giving the owners a chance at recovering some value rather than nothing. Also, it’s probably a more apt analogy for modern US hospitals: when you’re having say a heart attack you can’t exactly “price shop”.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y agoBut the slanted history point of view is that he started fires, so he can buy the distressed property. hospitals don't have an incentive to give you a heart attack.
- uoaei 3y agoHospitals absolutely do have an incentive, what they don't have is a means of triggering one that includes plausible deniability.
- sagarm 3y agoMedical errors happen all the time and often are preventable with better processes. Just don't invest in reducing the error rate and boom, more business.
- manmal 3y agoI‘m curious, why don’t hospitals have such an incentive? Naive conjecture would tell me otherwise.
- permo-w 3y agolitigiousness
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y agoThey do have an incentive to tell you your house is on fire (I.G. prescription drugs, and the like), but they don't actively set houses on fire because they don't have 100% market capture to the patients.
- manmal 3y agoYou don’t need 100% market capture to profit off new customers.