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The Economist on Healthcare

ONW said:
2nd bit I agree with, 1st part, wow.
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What part wows you. The part where people seem to have bizarre faith in "experts" who really aren't (especially compared to industry)? I've sat on many drug discovery NIH study section panels. I see what goes on and why. It's not exactly pretty. 50% of the people on those panels don't know what they're talking about and they evaluate everything based on an extremely narrow expertise that does not apply to the real world.

Twice I've seen projects that will no doubt what-so-ever fail, and get 2s across the board because these academic "experts" don't understand or appreciate how impossible the project would be to do from my area of expertise...medicinal chemistry. The pharmacologists and clinicians just liked the way it sounded. Major waste of 10m.

That kind of decision making does not go on in the commercial side. In fact when a commercial expert is on one of these study sections, the academics most often defer expertise to the commercial expert (afraid of being shown up by someone with nothing to lose because the commmercial expert does not have to get THEIR grant reviewed). It's funny watching a commercial drug discovery guy skewer some clueless pompous academician.

So claims like in that article are incredibly ignorant. They don't understand the perils of intellectual tribalism that exists when you remove a commercial pressure that prevents such tunnel vision from occurring. That costs WAY more than any threat of efficiency loss from marketing...the great health corporate evil that academic economists lock onto.
 
Shorty said:
Germans have 14% taken out of their "pay packets" for sickness funds as is.
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That's not exactly accurate. In Germany 15.2% of a person's salary is paid as HC premiums. Slightly less than half (about 7.3%) is paid by the employer.

Germans pay about 8% from their actual salaries.
 
RJKarl said:
That's not exactly accurate. In Germany 15.2% of a person's salary is paid as HC premiums. Slightly less than half (about 7.3%) is paid by the employer.

Germans pay about 8% from their actual salaries.
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Get real, RJ. Employers everywhere consider the loaded cost of an employee when setting salary levels.
 
pourdeac said:
What part wows you. The part where people seem to have bizarre faith in "experts" who really aren't (especially compared to industry)? I've sat on many drug discovery NIH study section panels. I see what goes on and why. It's not exactly pretty. 50% of the people on those panels don't know what they're talking about and they evaluate everything based on an extremely narrow expertise that does not apply to the real world.


That immigrants are so hated when the entire fucking country are immigrants.

"Bizarre faith", have you been to church lately? Like the pope and preachers are experts?
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Try to spend that money. If I never see it and don't pay taxes on it, it's never been mine.

It's the same theory that we pay taxes for the corporation. It's silly.
 
Shorty said:
Get real, RJ. Employers everywhere consider the loaded cost of an employee when setting salary levels.
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Don't know if that's the way salaries are set, but it is definitely considered when employers think about adding or deleting the number of employees.
 
If we have a centralized healthcare system that reimburses at Medicare and Medicaid rates you will see hospital doors closing all over this country. You will wait longer for procedures (assuming you are granted them) and there will be fewer physicians to select from.
 
DirkTheDeac said:
If we have a centralized healthcare system that reimburses at Medicare and Medicaid rates you will see hospital doors closing all over this country. You will wait longer for procedures (assuming you are granted them) and there will be fewer physicians to select from.
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What are the foundations of this belief?
 
ONW said:
What are the foundations of this belief?
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Lets just say I live it everyday and you can take it for what its worth. We've already seen 30% cuts in Medicare reimbursement, resources are scarce and physician and nursing recruitment is a big problem.

Oh, and demand is increasing dramatically as the population ages. Not a good combination of circumstances.
 
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Maurice said:
Don't know if that's the way salaries are set, but it is definitely considered when employers think about adding or deleting the number of employees.
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At the beginning of this year, I hired a person to handle customer service and fulfillment type of stuff. My partners and I decided what we could afford, backed out the cost of benefits, our half of FICA, etc, and the remainder was offered as salary.

Can't imagine we're unique in that.
 
Maurice said:
Don't know if that's the way salaries are set, but it is definitely considered when employers think about adding or deleting the number of employees.
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I have seen this first hand as well.
 
DirkTheDeac said:
Lets just say I live it everyday and you can take it for what its worth. We've already seen 30% cuts in Medicare reimbursement, resources are scarce and physician and nursing recruitment is a big problem.

Oh, and demand is increasing dramatically as the population ages. Not a good combination of circumstances.
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Fair enough, I trust your judgement, but you mention reimbursement, would that be dramatically easier from a single payer? And yes the aging population bump is not helping things.
 
You know this field, how did healthcare get linked to employers in the first place?
 
ONW said:
Fair enough, I trust your judgement, but you mention reimbursement, would that be dramatically easier from a single payer? And yes the aging population bump is not helping things.
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Its not a question of how its how much. And believe me, we are worried about it. And I'm no fan of insurance companies I would add. Not by any means. There needs to be reform on that end. And beyond that, medical manufacturers and big pharm have been tough on us too. And lets throw malpractice insurance on the slag heap while we're at it. Everybody wants a piece of the ever-shrinking pie.
 
DirkTheDeac said:
Its not a question of how its how much. And believe me, we are worried about it. And I'm no fan of insurance companies I would add. Not by any means. There needs to be reform on that end. And beyond that, medical manufacturers and big pharm have been tough on us too. And lets throw malpractice insurance on the slag heap while we're at it. Everybody wants a piece of the ever-shrinking pie.
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What would you change to fix things?
 
ONW said:
What would you change to fix things?
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It would take all day. But, since you ask I am a strong proponent of the ideas I see at the Center for Health Tranformation. Brace yourself, Newt used to run it but it has always included people from all parties and different areas in the health care field.

Check it out:

HealthTransformation
 
DirkTheDeac said:
It would take all day. But, since you ask I am a strong proponent of the ideas I see at the Center for Health Tranformation. Brace yourself, Newt used to run it but it has always included people from all parties and different areas in the health care field.

Check it out:

HealthTransformation
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I will. Thx.
 
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