Bill to Ban Private Equity from Owning Medical Practices
Thread
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
Bill to Ban Private Equity from Owning Medical Practices
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
NegativeK · · focus · HN ↗
I already hear the downsides frequently from someone whose work is directly affected.
twoodfin · · focus · HN ↗
Should they be outlawed from selling to certain classes of investor? Which?
Grombobulous · · focus · HN ↗
We have run this country on an assumption that we must give businesses a high amount of freedom. An argument can be made that businesses have been given too much freedom in our system. We’ve allowed Amazon and Ticketmaster and Walmart to exist and they shouldn’t exist in their present form.
Healthcare practices that provide necessary care shouldn’t even really be allowed to be for-profit entities if you ask me. The incentives become too perverse as a result.
furytrader · · focus · HN ↗
Do you realize that when Walmart moves into a community, prices charged for everyday things overall drop significantly, both at Walmart and their competition, which means that poor families are able to buy more with every dollar.
What do you have against poor people?
Grombobulous · · focus · HN ↗
Walmart is subsidized by the government to the tune of $2,000 per employee due to their low wages: <a href="https://rmfu.org/taxpayer-dollars-subsidize-wal-mart/" rel="nofollow">https://rmfu.org/taxpayer-dollars-subsidize-wal-mart/ [1]
They then get to skim the other side of those subsidies, too, since they sell so many items that qualify for SNAP and WIC, as well as being one of the largest if not the largest prescription supplier in the country.
(25% of Walmart employees qualify for Medicaid <a href="https://mafainsurance.com/how-many-walmart-employees-are-on-medicaid.html" rel="nofollow">https://mafainsurance.com/how-many-walmart-employees-are-on-...)
So their employees on SNAP and Medicaid turn right around and spend that money inside Walmart.
> both at Walmart and their competition
What competition? When Walmart comes to town, the competition closes.
[1] Probably a lot higher since this article is about 20 years old
gruez · · focus · HN ↗
>Walmart is subsidized by the government to the tune of $2,000 per employee due to their low wages: <a href="https://rmfu.org/taxpayer-dollars-subsidize-wal-mart/" rel="nofollow">https://rmfu.org/taxpayer-dollars-subsidize-wal-mart/ [1]
And what happens if walmart closed up shop? Do those employees magically evaporate and not need benefits? Why are we putting the blame on the employee's best employment option?
>What competition? When Walmart comes to town, the competition closes.
Why? Because they're sending goon squads to trash all the existing businesses? If walmart replacing "the competition" because they're offering lower prices and consumers are switching, why is this bad?
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act
>And what happens if walmart closed up shop
Everything explodes and people die in the streets.... No, other businesses move in to fill the economic needs because there is a profit to be made and provide jobs in doing so.
>Because they're sending goon squads to trash
You have a horrifically simplistic world view and can't imagine where goon squads actually are.
There was an article around 2 decades ago on how Walmart manipulates prices at an unimaginable scale via their suppliers. If you supply Walmart they automatically become your biggest customer. Walmart knows this, and has you by the proverbial balls. If you don't meet their demands they drop you in a heartbeat which is a death sentence for any business who's capitalization is not in the 10s of billions. There was a saying in this article I can no longer find but to summarize.
"To compete against Walmart is to invite death. To work with Walmart is to embrace it".
Simply put they are so large they have near monopoly power over a good chunk of manufacturing.
gruez · · focus · HN ↗
So what's the complaint here, that walmart negotiates aggressively, passing those better prices to buyers, and that's... bad? Given we're in a thread complaining about healthcare, should walmart do the opposite, instead using the insurance company strategy of encouraging their suppliers to pad their margins, so they can offer "modest" (in % terms, high in absolute terms) markups?
stephenhuey · · focus · HN ↗
An older relative had a very successful small conglomerate of businesses. One of them manufactured something costing close to $100 that Wal-Mart was interested in selling in its stores. After extensive negotiations, my relative told the Wal-Mart VP no because Wal-Mart was pressuring them to use cheaper parts that would make the product wear out more quickly. Wal-Mart didn't care because they'd be able to make the sales and then consumers would come back to buy again sooner, but my relative felt that was dishonorable. The VP said it was the first time a potential supplier ever walked away from him. They are notorious for their abuse of suppliers, and the ethical concerns are often very palpable. You might suggest this is simply market forces playing out, but we decided long ago that monopoly power often leads to a market we don't want to see in this country.
We the people get to decide what kind of society we want to live in. Their monopoly power means that in so many of the rural areas where they are, they might be one of the few viable employers. When people are poor, it's not so easy to just tell them to relocate to another geographical area, so it's easier for the entities benefiting from that to maintain the status quo at the expense of others. If we decide that for Wal-Mart to stay in business in the USA they need to pay employees more, with health insurance, then so be it. If they can't, then they can just go out of business and be replaced by a company that is able to navigate that balance better, offering pretty low prices while paying a bit more in wages.