Skip to content
Vayafail

Vayafail

Trailblazing health perfection

Primary Menu
  • Health & Fitness News
  • Health Insurance
  • Health Education
  • Dental Clinic
  • Health Food
  • Health
  • About Us
    • Advertise Here
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • sitemap
  • Home
  • I Was Wrong – The Health Care Blog
  • Dental Clinic

I Was Wrong – The Health Care Blog

By Freeman Ptak 3 years ago

[ad_1]

BY KIM BELLARD

The New York Times had an interesting set of op-eds last week under the theme “I Was Wrong.”  For example, Paul Krugman says he was wrong about inflation, David Brooks laments being wrong about capitalism, and Bret Stevens now fears he was wrong about Trump voters.  Nobody fessed up about being wrong about healthcare, so I’ll volunteer.  

I’ve been writing regularly about healthcare for over a decade now, with some strong opinions and often with some pretty speculative ideas.  I’ve had a lot to be wrong about, and I hope I will be wrong about many of them (e.g., microplastics).  Some of my thoughts (such as on DNA storage or nanorobots) may just be still too soon, but there are definitely some things I’d thought, or at least hoped, would have happened by now.

I’ll highlight three:

I thought we’d care more about our health  

Twenty plus years ago I was an evangelist for what we’d now call digital health.  Give people more, better health information and some useful health tools, then certainly they’d  use them to improve their health. If I’d known about smartphones or wearables I’d have been even more sure.

But, it turns out, not so much. Yes, we’re all pretty good about googling health information, many of us have health apps on our phones, and wearables are cool, but we’d be hard pressed to pinpoint exactly how our health has improved, generally speaking.  Our epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions continue to grow, and our mortality rates were an embarrassment even before the pandemic’s effects. 

The pandemic exacerbated, but did not cause, health disparities that fall along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines, ones that most countries would be embarrassed about but which the U.S. seems to tolerate without much political will around addressing them. ACA helped, but it was only a finger in the dike, and that dike is cracking.

Even worse, the pandemic proved that we care more about politics than our health, to the point many resist taking vaccines that have been proven safe and effective, or following simple public health measures like masking or social distancing. Even worse, many states are weakening public health departments’ powers generally.  How did taking care of our health become a political litmus test?

We’ve also shown that religion also trumps health, as evidenced by abortion restrictions. Some people’s religious views that a fetus is a person, even at conception, outweighs a woman’s rights to her own body, or even her own life. And those so-called “pro-life” believers only seem to care about the fetus during the pregnancy.  

I thought we’d care more about patients than profits

Silly me.

Twenty or even ten years ago seems like such a simpler time.  Hospitals hadn’t, for the most part, consolidated, franchised, or gone overseas.  Physician practices hadn’t been bought up in large numbers.  Private equity didn’t see specialists, air ambulances, nursing homes, or ER docs as huge profit opportunities.  Pharmaceutical companies hadn’t fully mastered how to extend their patents almost indefinitely in order to keep prices high.  Health insurers were happy if they could eke out margins in the low single digits.  

The healthcare system has gone all Martin Shkreli, finding profits anywhere and everywhere, the more the better.  There’s no evidence that hospital consolidation improves patient care and plenty of evidence that it raises prices. Medical school students see the income differentials and are increasingly opting to go into specialty fields.  Everyone has horror stories about prescription drug prices, yet Congress seems powerless to act, no doubt due to the pharmaceutical lobbying clout. No one thinks that private equity is looking to do anything but line their investors’ pockets. Health insurers have become so diversified that they have more revenue streams than we can count.

We’re closing in on health care at 20% of GDP. I remember people being alarmed when it hit 10%; how much more does it have to get before we recognize we’re chasing the wrong things?

I thought someone would figure out how to wreck healthcare 

Mark Zuckerberg’s famous motto was “move fast and break things,” and Facebook did both, somewhat to everyone’s chagrin (and, yet, we keep using Facebook…).  That attitude has never caught on in healthcare, ostensibly because it’s too dangerous for patients. But, I’ve come to suspect, it’s more that it is too dangerous for healthcare’s many vested interests.

I’ve been looking for several years for healthcare’s Uber, the entrant(s) that don’t care about how the industry has been structured (or regulated) and want to introduce a new, better consumer experience.  Big Tech was going to come in (especially Amazon). Walmart was going to come in.  Other retail companies, like Best Buy or video game companies, were going to come in. Well, they’re in, but I’m not seeing that much disruption.

We’ve got scores of digital health companies getting ridiculous amounts of money, and many of them are doing interesting things, but I don’t see many industry-wreckers among them.  They’re more in the “if we can just get 0.x% of healthcare spending, we’ll all be rich” mindset.

Again, Uber didn’t come along to improve the taxi industry’s technology or even its rider experience. It said, the taxi industry is a 1950’s model, with very restrictive regulations, so we’ll invent a new industry that replaces it. There’s a lot to criticize Uber for, but most of the “innovators” I see in healthcare are in the “improve taxi industry technology” category, not the blow-up-the-antiquated-healthcare-industry-model(s).

I’m convinced there is a healthcare system out there that is much cheaper, much more effective, much more convenient, and much more equitable.  But continuing to graft on to our healthcare system’s existing edifices isn’t going to get us to that.   

———

Barring some sort of miraculous life extension technology, I’m not going to live long enough to see what a 22nd century healthcare system looks like.  I have high hopes for it, and none of those hopes include it being similar to today’s system.  

I hope that is barely visible to us and that we don’t even necessarily think of it as a health care system (or, at least, a medical care system), because health is so woven into our lives.  I definitely hope that health is no longer a function of your income, race/ethnicity, gender, or location.  

I just hope I’m not wrong about all that too. 

Kim is a former emarketing exec at a major Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.io, and now regular THCB contributor.

[ad_2]

Source link

Tags: Apostrophe Health Brian, Cobb Douglas Public Health Department, Cpap Health Market, Cvs Affordable Health Insurance, Delegation In Public Health, Envoy Health Denton Autumn Lake, Fairview Health Services Yelp, Greenville Rancheria Tribal Health Center, Health And Safety Conferences 2019, Health Benefit Exchange Coi, Health Benefits Feta Olive Oil, Health Benefits Pawpaw, Health Canada Processed Food, Health Insurance Cheaper Single, Health Net Login 2018, Health Net Therapist Los Angeles, Health Problems From Uranium, Health Professional Licensing Board, Healthy Recipes For Brain Health, Hi Health Hearing Aids Reviews, Horton Valley Behavioral Health, Hospital Sisters Health System Number, How Intergrity Investigate Health Care, Iggy Azalea Mental Health, Jay Williamson United Health, Kernersville Health Care Center Jobs, La Canada Health Care, Lee Health New Ceo, Lsd Health Effects Edu, Mental Health Dissertation Pdf, Mental Health Retraints, Mental Health Utilization Racial Groups, Most Common Crime Health, New Health Market Job Reviews, Nys Health Insurance License, Physician Assistant Health Professional Organizations, Plant And Health Quotes, Prestige Women'S Health Care, Rex Health Care Login, Richmond Times Dispatch Health Reporters, Smokeless Tobacco Health Risks Definition, Soliant Health Houston, Stress Test S Health, Sunrise Health Care Moultrie Ga, Unified Life Insurance Health In, United Health Care Medcare, United Health Cincinnati Dentist Rating, United Hospital Mental Health Inpatient, Vive Health Coupon Codes, Wild Mosa Health Regen

Continue Reading

Previous Free medical clinic coming back to fairgrounds | Local
Next Nurse Tries Diet-to-Go and Sheds 30 Pounds
June 2025
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  
« May    

Archives

  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • January 2017

Categories

  • Dental Clinic
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Health & Fitness News
  • Health Education
  • Health Food
  • Health Insurance

Recent Posts

  • How CBD Can Help Manage Anxiety and Pain in Dogs and Cats
  • How to Know If You Need Anxiety Disorder Medication 
  • The Role of Rehab in Healing Relationships Affected by Addiction
  • Exploring the Role of a Biomagnetic Therapist and How MagnetRX Products Support Your Health
  • Navigating the Challenges of AI Disruption

Fiverr

Fiverr Logo   

bl

BP

backlinkplacement.com

Copyright © All rights reserved. | Magazine 7 by AF themes.

WhatsApp us