Bill to Ban Private Equity from Owning Medical Practices
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Bill to Ban Private Equity from Owning Medical Practices
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
throwaway13337 · · focus · HN ↗
They like companies with some kind of moat that makes it hard to unseat them. Basically, companies where there is no alternative for the consumer. That way, they can inflict abuse but know there will be nowhere to run.
There are two different ways to achieve this. Monopoly and regulation. Hospitals have both government granted locational monopoly and tons of regulations that make it impossible to compete.
Private equity is the symptom, not the disease.
Until we get at the disease, new monsters will be born with different name filling the same ecological niche. It's economic natural selection played out in the environment we created.
Waterluvian · · focus · HN ↗
claytongulick · · focus · HN ↗
"For profit" isn't really the problem, fee for service is.
Value based arrangements and capitated payment structures are real improvements.
When you don't have any market forces constraining utilization, you get massive access problems.
robmccoll · · focus · HN ↗
georgemcbay · · focus · HN ↗
It boggles my mind when I still occasionally hear people speaking out against all forms of single payer healthcare in the US saying they don't want to have to wait weeks/months to see a doctor like they do in Canada/UK/wherever.
If I give them the benefit of the doubt of not being paid lobbyists for the medical insurance industry, I can only surmise these people haven't been to a non-emergency doctor since prior to 2020.
Because even here in the US if you aren't fabulously wealthy with concierge medical you'll be waiting weeks/months to see a 'doctor'. And you'll almost certainly never actually see a doctor, you're going to see an overworked NP (no shade on NPs here, most of whom are great, just establishing how our medical system actually works in 2026).
AnthonyMouse · · focus · HN ↗
Conversely, people consistently put forth single-payer as a panacea without considering what other differences exist between the systems.
For example, in the US a medical residency is required by law but the number of residency slots is constrained because the AMA wants to reduce supply/competition. Change who pays the premiums and that's still just as much of a problem, and it might even make it worse to give the lobbyists an even deeper pocket to siphon money from.
Another significant source of costs in the US system is that doctors can prescribe much more expensive patented drugs or devices and no part of the system is given the incentive to say no to something which is only slightly or negligibly better but dramatically more expensive. Likewise, many of these patents are obvious (e.g. extended release version of existing drug or combination of two common existing drugs) and shouldn't be granted, but nevertheless are. But if those patents are issued and the system is required to pay for a drug when a doctor prescribes it, the seller has a monopoly for the patent term and can charge the monopoly price. The normal way to solve that is for "customers" to be more exposed to cost differences between treatment options, so that things that are only marginally better can only charge marginally higher prices, which is the opposite of how single-payer works.
"Single payer" is essentially replacing insurance companies with the government, but that doesn't solve any of the problems that exist in the parts of the system that aren't the insurance companies.
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗
AnthonyMouse · · focus · HN ↗
For example, why do we have insurance companies "negotiating" with providers and having "in-network" nonsense instead of requiring universal price transparency? Instead of the insurance company setting the price, have them set how much they cover, e.g. they pay 90% of the second lowest price that service is available for within 100 miles of the patient. Then the patient chooses where to go and pays whatever the insurance doesn't cover. Meanwhile the providers are all required to publish transparent pricing so there is a public database of everyone who can perform a service and how much they charge.
Then a patient receiving non-emergency care (which is the large majority of medical expenses) can decide whether they want to travel 50 minutes to get the lowest price, or pay a little more of their own money because another provider is closer or provides optional amenities. Which in turn makes the providers actually compete with each other, which is the thing single-payer doesn't get you.
underlipton · · focus · HN ↗
They are, and it is. And I'm not assuming; it's been proven empirically. Chasing "choice" is a distraction; the goal is access, which choice comes alongside.