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Wait… what’s wrong with motivated by profit? If the service sucks, they’ll lose customers. Focusing on profit is fundamentally sound unless you’re a monopoly,

Wait… what’s wrong with motivated by profit? If the service sucks, they’ll lose customers. Focusing on profit is fundamentally sound unless you’re a monopoly, which tend to be when Gov sticks its beak into things it shouldn’t.

cmiles74 2y ago
I agree, there's nothing wrong with focusing on profit. The "non-profit" organizations are given tax-exempt status because they are centered around providing a public or social benefit, they explicitly should not be focused on providing a profit to their owners. In my opinion the majority of people can't afford to choose their hospital. Often it's the one that is within their means to travel and provides the service they require, regardless of the quality of their services. And, of course, after a serious accident you end up wherever the ambulance brings you.
Keegs 2y ago
> If the service sucks, they’ll lose customers. We’re talking about hospitals. Many areas are served by one local hospital. And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go. It’s also pretty difficult to compare one hospital with another. IMO hospitals resemble utilities where market forces aren’t enough to guarantee good service.
- happyopossum 2y ago
  > And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go, not you. Don't necessarily disagree with most of your sentiment, however the vast majority of hospital patients do not arrive in an ambulance, or even through the ER. A lot of hospital services are elective or planned (surgeries, pregnancies, etc) and for those I've found it very helpful to 'shop' for the best options. Also, the one time I was in an ambulance, they asked which hospital I wanted my daughter transported to. All that said, it isn't always possible or feasible to choose - but it's not because of an ambulance.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Yeah, it’s usually insurance network that decides where you can go (if you don’t want to go bankrupt)
- systemvoltage 2y ago
  You're making an assumption that a hospital is a monopoly. I explicitly said "unless it's a monopoly". Ok, if "many areas have one hospital"... I don't think that's true at all. Most areas have multiple hospitals. Most people live in metropolitan or suburban areas.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    Depends on your definition. Do you only have 1 local hospital if there is another in a city that is a 2 hour drive away? Maybe only 1 hour? 30 minutes? Where do you draw the line?
- wernercd 2y ago
  maybe if regulations and taxes weren't so high, there could be more competition? Transparency and the like would help... Increasing taxes and removing alternatives is never a good deal. "market forces aren't enough" government forces aren't enough either. The VA is the penultimate example and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. That's where our veterans go to commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help. 22 Veterans.
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    "The VA is the penultimate example and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. That's where our veterans go to commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help." The people I know who use the VA are quite OK with it. It's not perfect but none of them would want to put up with the insanity the rest of us has to.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      It really depends on the hospital.
      - Arrath 2y ago
        I know vets who have moved states simply to leave a poorly run VA region and find a good one, so yes it very much does.
    - wernercd 2y ago
      Yeah... and the people that commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help? They are chopped liver? They don't matter. "it's not perfect" It's garbage and a prime example of government programs. Works for a few and fucks over the rest. The ACA helps a few... and is built on lies - keep your plan? keep your doctor? save $2500 a year? Lies, lies, lies... a few million get help. The other 100m pay more, higher deductibles, lose their plans, lose their doctors. But who cares about the 100m if the 1m get helped, eh? the biggest problem is the wasted money, the lies and the people dying in the parking lots. But who gives a f' about them eh?
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > We’re talking about hospitals. Many areas are served by one local hospital. And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go. It’s also pretty difficult to compare one hospital with another. Paramedic here. It's typically, effectively, your insurance that dictates how we decide where you go. If you're an acute, time-sensitive patient, then from a multitude of angles, "closest appropriate facility" makes sense. Perhaps you dislike a hospital, or it's inconvenient, and you're not as acute or timely a patient, and your view is "I want to go to X hospital, and since I'm paying, why shouldn't I get to choose?" As a paramedic, personally, I don't care. However. Your insurance does. And their perspective (sometimes rightly, and quite regularly wrongly) is that if you are well enough to bypass a hospital or multiple hospitals en route to a "chosen" facility, then did you need the ambulance? And if you didn't need it, why are "they" paying for it? And they can, and absolutely will, kick bills back to the ambulance company with a "please justify why an EMS transport was required versus advising POV (privately owned vehicle) transport or physician followup". What they want to see happen, and what generally is actually the better option, as a provider is "we will go to the closest facility where they will assess and stabilize you as needed. if you then wish to be -transferred- to your facility of choice, they will organize that" (and, since the insurance criteria and questions are met, and a physician ordered the EMS transport, you should be covered). Though it is certainly less "convenient" for you. Even beyond that, the area I'm in we have two hospitals. One is a Level 2 Trauma Center, one is a Level 3, but they're mostly comparable except for, well, acute trauma. We as providers will have a solid perspective of patient load in the ED of those hospitals, so I might ASK, not TELL you, hey, we might want to go to Hospital B, not A. And occasionally, though diversion is a convenience, not a concept under EMTALA (we can still absolutely show up at the ED with a patient even if they're "on divert"), some of the facilities here will round-robin to balance patient loads. (Also, don't start me on Certificates of Need, where new hospitals essentially have to get the permission of existing hospitals in the area before they can open - essentially, "will you be okay if we take patients away from you"...)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- thayne 2y ago
  And if you have several in the area, you might only have one that is in your insurance network. And that one may actually be substantially farther away than ones that aren't.
refurb 2y ago
A comment on YC, a social media platform formed by a venture capital organization, and a comment saying “motivated by profit” gets downvoted.
- uoaei 2y ago
  Almost as if communities are neither monoliths nor hiveminds!
  - refurb 2y ago
    That's not really relevant to my point?
    - uoaei 2y ago
      Your entire comment is based on that premise. If you gave folks the benefit of "not aligning with the majoritarian or stereotypical opinion" you wouldn't feel the way that you've expressed.
      - refurb 2y ago
        My argument is not based on that premise at all. It's the idea that a comment that supports the basic foundation of the organization who run this board gets so severely downvoted. I'm justing calling out how ironic it is.
        uoaei 2y ago
        And that happens because different people are different and vote differently. No one is obligated to conform to your stereotypes.
- systemvoltage 2y ago
  This whole place has been captured ideologically. HN has fallen so hard, even its leaders can't post here.
uoaei 2y ago
> fundamentally sound The language you've chosen is baldly ideological and leaaves no room for good faith discussion.
- chimpanzee 2y ago
  I almost appreciate them slipping this phrase in. It signals that that door in their mind has closed and arguing against it is not worth the trouble.
Peanuts99 2y ago
As someone from the UK this is a strange thing to hear about a healthcare institution. In my view the end user is a patient and not a customer. If a sandwich shop produces bad sandwiches then eventually people stop buying them and shop around. This doesn't work with hospitals. In the worst case, dead people can't shop around.
mjbale116 2y ago
If their service sucks I lose my life. This isn't a discretionary purchase, let's stop pretending one can go shopping for care.
mindslight 2y ago
The healthcare industry has been thoroughly regulatory captured, so profits generally represent steeper zero-sum wealth extraction rather than having provided mutually consensual transactions. We likely agree that the main dysfunction of the healthcare industry is the complete lack of price signals, but without multiple key dynamics being fixed (off the top of my head: the nonsensical ability to create post-facto bills not based on any contract, anti-competitive arrangement between "insurance" and "providers" in the form of price fixing "networks", lack of statutory maximum rates for emergency care), superficial deregulation would only make the problem worse.

cmiles74 2y ago

I agree, there's nothing wrong with focusing on profit. The "non-profit" organizations are given tax-exempt status because they are centered around providing a public or social benefit, they explicitly should not be focused on providing a profit to their owners. In my opinion the majority of people can't afford to choose their hospital. Often it's the one that is within their means to travel and provides the service they require, regardless of the quality of their services. And, of course, after a serious accident you end up wherever the ambulance brings you.

Keegs 2y ago

> If the service sucks, they’ll lose customers. We’re talking about hospitals. Many areas are served by one local hospital. And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go. It’s also pretty difficult to compare one hospital with another. IMO hospitals resemble utilities where market forces aren’t enough to guarantee good service.

happyopossum 2y ago
> And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go, not you. Don't necessarily disagree with most of your sentiment, however the vast majority of hospital patients do not arrive in an ambulance, or even through the ER. A lot of hospital services are elective or planned (surgeries, pregnancies, etc) and for those I've found it very helpful to 'shop' for the best options. Also, the one time I was in an ambulance, they asked which hospital I wanted my daughter transported to. All that said, it isn't always possible or feasible to choose - but it's not because of an ambulance.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Yeah, it’s usually insurance network that decides where you can go (if you don’t want to go bankrupt)
systemvoltage 2y ago
You're making an assumption that a hospital is a monopoly. I explicitly said "unless it's a monopoly". Ok, if "many areas have one hospital"... I don't think that's true at all. Most areas have multiple hospitals. Most people live in metropolitan or suburban areas.
- jandrese 2y ago
  Depends on your definition. Do you only have 1 local hospital if there is another in a city that is a 2 hour drive away? Maybe only 1 hour? 30 minutes? Where do you draw the line?
wernercd 2y ago
maybe if regulations and taxes weren't so high, there could be more competition? Transparency and the like would help... Increasing taxes and removing alternatives is never a good deal. "market forces aren't enough" government forces aren't enough either. The VA is the penultimate example and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. That's where our veterans go to commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help. 22 Veterans.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  "The VA is the penultimate example and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. That's where our veterans go to commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help." The people I know who use the VA are quite OK with it. It's not perfect but none of them would want to put up with the insanity the rest of us has to.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    It really depends on the hospital.
    - Arrath 2y ago
      I know vets who have moved states simply to leave a poorly run VA region and find a good one, so yes it very much does.
  - wernercd 2y ago
    Yeah... and the people that commit suicide in the parking lots waiting on help? They are chopped liver? They don't matter. "it's not perfect" It's garbage and a prime example of government programs. Works for a few and fucks over the rest. The ACA helps a few... and is built on lies - keep your plan? keep your doctor? save $2500 a year? Lies, lies, lies... a few million get help. The other 100m pay more, higher deductibles, lose their plans, lose their doctors. But who cares about the 100m if the 1m get helped, eh? the biggest problem is the wasted money, the lies and the people dying in the parking lots. But who gives a f' about them eh?
FireBeyond 2y ago
> We’re talking about hospitals. Many areas are served by one local hospital. And where there are several, it’s typically the ambulance who decides where you go. It’s also pretty difficult to compare one hospital with another. Paramedic here. It's typically, effectively, your insurance that dictates how we decide where you go. If you're an acute, time-sensitive patient, then from a multitude of angles, "closest appropriate facility" makes sense. Perhaps you dislike a hospital, or it's inconvenient, and you're not as acute or timely a patient, and your view is "I want to go to X hospital, and since I'm paying, why shouldn't I get to choose?" As a paramedic, personally, I don't care. However. Your insurance does. And their perspective (sometimes rightly, and quite regularly wrongly) is that if you are well enough to bypass a hospital or multiple hospitals en route to a "chosen" facility, then did you need the ambulance? And if you didn't need it, why are "they" paying for it? And they can, and absolutely will, kick bills back to the ambulance company with a "please justify why an EMS transport was required versus advising POV (privately owned vehicle) transport or physician followup". What they want to see happen, and what generally is actually the better option, as a provider is "we will go to the closest facility where they will assess and stabilize you as needed. if you then wish to be -transferred- to your facility of choice, they will organize that" (and, since the insurance criteria and questions are met, and a physician ordered the EMS transport, you should be covered). Though it is certainly less "convenient" for you. Even beyond that, the area I'm in we have two hospitals. One is a Level 2 Trauma Center, one is a Level 3, but they're mostly comparable except for, well, acute trauma. We as providers will have a solid perspective of patient load in the ED of those hospitals, so I might ASK, not TELL you, hey, we might want to go to Hospital B, not A. And occasionally, though diversion is a convenience, not a concept under EMTALA (we can still absolutely show up at the ED with a patient even if they're "on divert"), some of the facilities here will round-robin to balance patient loads. (Also, don't start me on Certificates of Need, where new hospitals essentially have to get the permission of existing hospitals in the area before they can open - essentially, "will you be okay if we take patients away from you"...)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thayne 2y ago
And if you have several in the area, you might only have one that is in your insurance network. And that one may actually be substantially farther away than ones that aren't.

refurb 2y ago

A comment on YC, a social media platform formed by a venture capital organization, and a comment saying “motivated by profit” gets downvoted.

uoaei 2y ago
Almost as if communities are neither monoliths nor hiveminds!
- refurb 2y ago
  That's not really relevant to my point?
  - uoaei 2y ago
    Your entire comment is based on that premise. If you gave folks the benefit of "not aligning with the majoritarian or stereotypical opinion" you wouldn't feel the way that you've expressed.
    - refurb 2y ago
      My argument is not based on that premise at all. It's the idea that a comment that supports the basic foundation of the organization who run this board gets so severely downvoted. I'm justing calling out how ironic it is.
      - uoaei 2y ago
        And that happens because different people are different and vote differently. No one is obligated to conform to your stereotypes.
systemvoltage 2y ago
This whole place has been captured ideologically. HN has fallen so hard, even its leaders can't post here.

uoaei 2y ago

> fundamentally sound The language you've chosen is baldly ideological and leaaves no room for good faith discussion.

chimpanzee 2y ago
I almost appreciate them slipping this phrase in. It signals that that door in their mind has closed and arguing against it is not worth the trouble.

Peanuts99 2y ago

As someone from the UK this is a strange thing to hear about a healthcare institution. In my view the end user is a patient and not a customer. If a sandwich shop produces bad sandwiches then eventually people stop buying them and shop around. This doesn't work with hospitals. In the worst case, dead people can't shop around.

mjbale116 2y ago

If their service sucks I lose my life. This isn't a discretionary purchase, let's stop pretending one can go shopping for care.

mindslight 2y ago

The healthcare industry has been thoroughly regulatory captured, so profits generally represent steeper zero-sum wealth extraction rather than having provided mutually consensual transactions. We likely agree that the main dysfunction of the healthcare industry is the complete lack of price signals, but without multiple key dynamics being fixed (off the top of my head: the nonsensical ability to create post-facto bills not based on any contract, anti-competitive arrangement between "insurance" and "providers" in the form of price fixing "networks", lack of statutory maximum rates for emergency care), superficial deregulation would only make the problem worse.