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A comment on A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the Industry Is Rattled. Parent comment

Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by lstodd on Sunday October 21, 2018 @05:24PM (#18270358)
It's like being given a potentially ancient, bit-rotten code base and asked to refactor the shit out of it for a fixed price. And you can't know that upfront.

It might take a day. It may take a decade. It may take you the customer to change your entire approach.

This is not feasible. You can not disregard hidden defects and the cost of fixing them unless you do not really want reliabilty. If you do not want it, then don't complain.

In IT this requested lack of reliability is accepted. In healthcare and auto repair it is barred by law.

EDIT: i hate autocorrection.

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Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by manicdee on Sunday October 21, 2018 @05:45PM (#18270487)
GP was booking an appointment for a routine procedure which has a known scope, effort, and bill of materials. There is nothing in this procedure that even remotely resembles refactoring a legacy codebase.
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Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by segmondy on Sunday October 21, 2018 @05:47PM (#18270504)
It's not the same. The nurse, the doctor was not a surprise. Bet you given 20 cases of people coming to check for strep, chances are their bills would have been around $400 too not $60. So they should use that amount.
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Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by wyattpeak on Sunday October 21, 2018 @05:32PM (#18270417)
GP suggested a written estimate, not a quote.
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Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by dantheman on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @03:44PM (#18286750)
All of those fees are completely predictable. Sure if the doctor noticed a problem, they could then offer advice/treatment and the new price.

This idea that medicine is different than other fields is crazy.

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Re:A Billionaire Pledges to Fight High Drug Prices, and the ... by scalablenotions on Sunday October 21, 2018 @05:50PM (#18270527)
> i hate autocorrection. No you don't, or you'd turn it off. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.
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