Conversation

Weirdest subplot I’m tracking: failing hospital economics. This is something that can only happen in the US because they’re run for profit (or on individual nonprofit basis). Often owned by PE firms. Seems their high-margin “products” are a) elective procedures b) ER visits...
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For those who came in late: Because hospitals (esp ERs) are losing money due to Covid19 priority and fall in other causes of emergencies like traffic accidents, and delaying of elective surgeries, they’re in a short-term $ crisis. So cutting pay. Including for frontline staff.
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There’s a weird way some form of nationalized healthcare could happen. This will clearly (and justifiably) cause outrage. Frontline staff will not only demand (and should get) back pay, they should probably get hazard pay too. This will most likely come from bailout funds...
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The terms of this bailout are crucial. The PE firms that own these assets will likely try to score no-strings free money. Best case, they’ll probably get easy loan terms with requirement that it be used for back pay and not laying off/furloughing staff, either frontline or admin.
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But this is bad. The PE firms should NOT get to socialize the costs of their profiteering in better times with no consequences during public service periods. I think the government should get equity for bailout even if the owners lose control. Indirect partial nationalization.
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Not saying you necessarily want state run healthcare. But a transient public ownership phase might be the perfect condition under which to pass much needed reform laws and get a better healthcare for all type deal done, with infrastructural skin in the game.
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Caveat: I just learned about all this via reading public news coverage in the last week or so. I’m sure my naive layperson gloss on this is the tip of a very deep iceberg, and that there’s already an invisible war underway for control of the future of the hospital system.
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If I got anything badly wrong please correct me. If you have good deeper links on this, please share. I’m not linking anything I’ve read so far because... they’re not particularly good links/sources.
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I wouldn’t overfit that one data point without tracing the entire stack of systemic incentives. I’m sure some ER doctors are in it for profiteering, but I’d bet the median doctor of any kind is in the game to save lives more than the admin orgs are.
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