7 ms·
Private equity and hedge funds should not be allowed to own public goods like hospitals or housing.
by locopati 3y ago
Private equity and hedge funds should not be allowed to own public goods like hospitals or housing.
- jwsteigerwalt 3y ago[flagged]
- aaomidi 3y agoWhy? PE owning healthcare is especially problematic because nickel and diming on healthcare is playing with actual lives.
- edgyquant 3y agoIm not sure I agree with the poster but the argument is something like, “hospitals who kill people receive less business under a free market. Under a regulated one there is less competition for people to choose from.”
- gamepsys 3y agoHealth care is one of the most regulated markets. Seems like a good portion of the regulation is about capturing profits for shareholders.
- woodruffw 3y agoI don't think medical care is particularly well modeled as a market: it's not clear that a small town hospital really can have any competition, or that someone in an active medical emergency has any meaningful choice about which hospital they get sent to. Similarly for specialty treatment.
- jliptzin 3y agoAlso it’s not clear where someone would even look up those statistics even if they had the time to do it
- edgyquant 3y agoDo they need to? In my hometown there is a private owned hospital that basically no one in town goes to because we all had, or knew someone who had, a bad experience there. As an aside, The corporate owner of the hospital declared bankruptcy a few years ago.
- ChainOfFools 3y agowhich leads to someone else making a business out of 'objectively' collecting, packaging and disseminating them on behalf of ... the hospital systems.
- josho 3y agoThat argument is flawed. A well-run healthcare system keeps people out of the healthcare system. Eg. every $1 spent in preventive care avoids $10 (not actual numbers) in other costs down the road through surgeries and other services. Translate into capitalist terms, our fee-for-service model heavily incentivizes increasing profits through poor patient outcomes.
- edgyquant 3y agoSure, if people are dumb sheep with no choice but to keep going. But if a hospital actually fixed people more people are likely to choose that one which results in more business for them and less for their rent seeking competitor.
- 650REDHAIR 3y agoWhy is that a ridiculous statement? I work in the system. The incentives are misaligned at best.
- aceazzameen 3y agoDefinitely misaligned. The need for unlimited growth and profit will never align with healthcare, who's goal should be to keep as many people as healthy and out of the system as possible.
- richbell 3y agoGoldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?' https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-p...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- oatmeal1 3y agoThe need for unlimited growth and profit created incredible technologies and medications that keep us healthy.
- drekk 3y agoNo, government R&D dollars did. Most of the significant advanced were "too risky" for corporations to view them as growth opportunities. Even though taxpayers fund the studies they're charged not only for the products but to read the results.
- oatmeal1 3y agoGovernment is a double-edged sword. Classifying drugs like psilocybin as class 1, meaning researchers couldn't even study it. Also, 13 year approval process makes it extremely expensive to try to get a drug to market. Of course government R&D dollars are needed!
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIt’s impossible until it is done.
- AmVess 3y agoI know someone who is a retired hospital administrator. 24 years ago, that hospital posted its first ever 1 million in profits. Last year, that same hospital posted 100 million in profits. It is owned by a PE firm, and people wonder why appendectomies now cost $30k and simple ambulance rides are $15k.
- neurostimulant 3y agoTurns out people would pay any price for life-saving treatments. There is also the lack of competition due to high regulatory barrier.
- AmVess 3y ago[flagged]
- meepmorp 3y agoYou may or may not have a point to make here, but it's entirely obscured by your pointlessly hostile framing and snark.
- dchftcs 3y agoWe can attempt to deduce the point from the comment. The only assertive statement that the comment it replied to was "close to" the stupidest, but not the stupidest. One possible evidence for that sort of statement is presenting the actual comment that is the stupidest, but such evidence was not presented explicitly. However, we can assume that the author intends the justification to be self-apparent; with this assumption, the best explanation is that their comment itself is the evidence they wish to present, ergo the actual stupidest comment.
- nickthegreek 3y agoJudging by the grayness of your comment, people seem to find your response even dumber. They made 2 arguments, that people will pay a large amount to save their own life and that there is a regulatory barrier to spinning up your own medical center. It would be wise to attack the substance of those 2 points rather then pretend you are so much smarter than the poster that you don't need to dirty yourself to answer them but narcissistic enough to make sure everyone in the room knows.
- roenxi 3y agoAnyone should be allowed to open, own and run a new hospital. Which stands in direct conflict to your opinion. I bet I could wander through these hospitals, chat to the staff and find ways to reduce cost and drastically reduce outcomes - given the numbers that are being quoted, it is not a challenging task. And I could probably set up a new hospital that did much better and is much popular with patients. But I'm nobody special, so if I can see that every can. If it isn't happening, it is probably because setting up a good hospital is illegal. Working on making competition easier will get good results.
- OfficeChad 3y ago[dead]
- toiletfuneral 3y ago[dead]
- avs733 3y agowhich is exactly WHY they want to own these things. c.f. elder care, child care, basic utilities. If you own things that cannot be allowed to completely collapse, you can always dangle them over the edge and demand ransom.