So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

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  • George Jung
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2004
    • 31057

    So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

    ... what you wish for.

    Du
    ring the Great Recession, when many hospitals across the country were nearly brought to their knees by growing numbers of uninsured patients, one hospital system not only survived — it thrived.
    Readers’ Comments

    "When a company is allowed to ask 'is it financially viable for us to treat this illness?' there is a huge conflict of interest. "



    In fact, profits at the health care industry giant HCA, which controls 163 hospitals from New Hampshire to California, have soared, far outpacing those of most of its competitors.
    The big winners have been three private equity firms — including Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate — that bought HCA in late 2006.
    HCA’s robust profit growth has raised the value of the firms’ holdings to nearly three and a half times their initial investment in the $33 billion deal.
    The financial performance has been so impressive that HCA has become a model for the industry. Its success inspired 35 buyouts of hospitals or chains of facilities in the last two and a half years by private equity firms eager to repeat that windfall.
    HCA’s emergence as a powerful leader in the hospital industry is all the more remarkable because only a decade ago the company was badly shaken by a wide-ranging Medicare fraud investigation that it eventually settled for more than $1.7 billion.
    Among the secrets to HCA’s success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with new ways to reduce the cost of its medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.
    Wait! There's more...

    Under private equity ownership, HCA made an aggressive push for more revenue that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over patient care.



    Did I mention Romney's Bain Capitol is at the center of this?
    There's a lot of things they didn't tell me when I signed on with this outfit....
  • Keith Wilson
    Trying to be reasonable
    • Oct 1999
    • 64114

    #2
    Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

    George, why do you hate America?

    (Sorry, couldn't resist. )
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
    for nature cannot be fooled."

    Richard Feynman

    Comment

    • elf
      opinionated crone
      • Sep 2006
      • 19258

      #3
      Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

      Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?


      Read this before it goes behind the paywall.
      A society predicated on the assumption that everyone in it should want to get rich is not well situated to become either ethical or imaginative.

      Photographer of sailing and sailboats
      And other things, too.

      http://www.landsedgephoto.photodeck.com

      Comment

      • John Smith
        Senior Member
        • Mar 2009
        • 48681

        #4
        Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

        I think there's a forest hiding the trees thing here. Healthcare is not like a restaurant where you can pick and choose your meals.

        It is not rocket science to see how costs go up. A new technology is developed and a patient that would have died some years back now survives.Not only is the new procedure a cost that didn't used to be, so is the rest of the costs he creates by surviving.

        We can look to the military to confirm this. We've had troops in battle. Injuries are survived that would have been fatal in past wars. This creates a greater burden on their healthcare system.

        What tests are available today that weren't available 30 years ago?

        It's also interesting to see Romney praise Israel's system.
        "Banning books in spite of the 1st amendment, but refusing to regulate guns in spite of "well regulated militia' being in the 2nd amendment makes no sense. Can't think of anyone ever shot by a book

        Comment

        • johnw
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2001
          • 28589

          #5
          Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

          Originally posted by elf
          http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...a_fact_gawande

          Read this before it goes behind the paywall.
          Thanks for that.
          On the trailing edge of technology.

          https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-John-L.../dp/B07LC6Y934

          http://www.scribd.com/johnmwatkins/documents

          http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/

          Comment

          • Gerarddm
            #RESIST
            • Feb 2010
            • 32453

            #6
            Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

            It is immoral to make a profit on misery.
            Gerard>
            Albuquerque, NM

            Next election, vote against EVERY Republican, for EVERY office, at EVERY level. Be patriotic, save the country.

            Comment

            • John Smith
              Senior Member
              • Mar 2009
              • 48681

              #7
              Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

              Originally posted by Gerarddm
              It is immoral to make a profit on misery.
              but it is legal. Many things legal can be deemed immoral.
              "Banning books in spite of the 1st amendment, but refusing to regulate guns in spite of "well regulated militia' being in the 2nd amendment makes no sense. Can't think of anyone ever shot by a book

              Comment

              • elf
                opinionated crone
                • Sep 2006
                • 19258

                #8
                Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                Originally posted by John Smith
                It's also interesting to see Romney praise Israel's system.
                Almost entirely as a clear demonstration that he has no clue of the words and the implications of them which pop out of his mouth. Romney seems to be a person who simply does not think before he speaks.

                I'm a great example of that, and for that reason I categorize myself as chronically impolitic and stay away from situations where I have to argue a point with airtight reasoning.
                A society predicated on the assumption that everyone in it should want to get rich is not well situated to become either ethical or imaginative.

                Photographer of sailing and sailboats
                And other things, too.

                http://www.landsedgephoto.photodeck.com

                Comment

                • hanleyclifford
                  low information voter
                  • Jun 2010
                  • 9272

                  #9
                  Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                  A big battle lies ahead which will determine whether health care will continue to become an ever more expensive and predatory business arrangement or whether the US will move towards making health care more of a proper function of government. This is going to transcend political party and ideological affiliations so let's not make this too political yet. A significant group of righties are on board with this.
                  Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)

                  Comment

                  • hanleyclifford
                    low information voter
                    • Jun 2010
                    • 9272

                    #10
                    Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                    Originally posted by Norman Bernstein
                    With, of course, the exception of their Presidential candidate.
                    I don't think "their Presidential candidate" has enough mental continuity to be ideologically defined.
                    Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)

                    Comment

                    • TomF
                      Recalcitrant Heretic
                      • Jun 2003
                      • 50976

                      #11
                      Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                      Well, he used to be somewhat on board with it.

                      Both private and public sector health systems have inherent problems, inherent ways in which laudable goals are subverted or eroded. I have no personal difficulty, though, in preferring the problems of public sector systems ... because even when various types of failure occur (and are infuriating!), the benefits of universal access outweigh them.
                      If I use the word "God," I sure don't mean an old man in the sky who just loves the occasional goat sacrifice. - Anne Lamott

                      Comment

                      • hanleyclifford
                        low information voter
                        • Jun 2010
                        • 9272

                        #12
                        Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                        Originally posted by TomF
                        Well, he used to be somewhat on board with it.

                        Both private and public sector health systems have inherent problems, inherent ways in which laudable goals are subverted or eroded. I have no personal difficulty, though, in preferring the problems of public sector systems ... because even when various types of failure occur (and are infuriating!), the benefits of universal access outweigh them.
                        Good post.
                        Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers. (Averell Harriman)

                        Comment

                        • George Jung
                          Senior Member
                          • Jan 2004
                          • 31057

                          #13
                          Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                          Amazing how, so far, Romney has been able to dodge his one-eighty on RomneyCare. But he's beholden to Big Capitalist Medicine, and a continuation of the free money, if he wants to be elected (I don't think it'll help). The Republicans of today don't seem to stand for anything the name used to represent, do they?

                          A diversion - unrelated to healthcare, but perhaps emblematic of 'what's wrong with America'. Thhere's a bill coming up that would require all foods produced from GMO crops be so labeled - and the Giants of GMO (Monsanto et al) have poured $25 million into shouting it down, with ads, before the vote. Apparently that's the new modus operandi for BigBusiness to defeat such moves by the little people. The votes' in California.
                          There's a lot of things they didn't tell me when I signed on with this outfit....

                          Comment

                          • Waddie
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2009
                            • 9106

                            #14
                            Re: So.... like having your healthcare treated like a business? Careful....

                            My wife worked in health care management for a large union health care system for 35 or so years. One of her jobs was to shop around for the best deal on organ transplants. Cost was not the only criteria. Success rates, how often the surgeon was sued, the hospitals record, nurse to patient ratios were also considerations. It took a lot of digging and special skills to find this information. Seldom was the highest priced hospital the best. Often it was cheaper and better treatment for the union to pay the hotel costs of putting the patient and spouse up in a hotel while the outpatient work was being done.

                            Fact is, only lazik eye surgery, because it usually isn't covered by insurance, is about the only really competitive non cosmitic procedure that has had real competition - and prices have fallen dramatically over the years. What once cost $2500 per eye is now as low as $299 in our area.

                            Only emergency care is difficult to shop around for. However, we have done just that, so we know our preferred emergency room. But most of you don't know what you dentist charges for even simple procedures. You don't know how often your doctor has been sued or disciplined, or whether the doctor has any vested interest in the lab he/she sends your blood tests to, or much else relating to the quality of your care - because that information isn't readily available without some serious digging, if you can find it at all. It's virtually impossible to shop for the overall best, most reasonable health care because it is a murky, shadowy system intended to keep us in the dark as much as possible. Just ask your dentist how much to fill a simple cavity, even a price range, and you'll be lucky to get a straight answer.

                            regards,
                            Waddie
                            I started with nothing and I still have most of it....

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