The same thing goes for quality of medical care - when they mess up they get to fix their own mess and charge for it.
For example when our first kid was born, the gynecologist had her trainee pull our son out with their rope thing. She was supposed to apply pressure during the contractions, only she panicked and pulled my son out in one go (she was using her legs to push for force, you can't make this up). The result is that the baby was born quickly and my wife was ripped open. She required urgent surgery to put herself back together, then a month stuck laying in bed and about three months before she was mobile. She still have problems because of it.
The hospital were happy because they could charge three times as much for the corrective surgery than they charged for delivery.
My example was in The Netherlands, where the healthcare costs are well under control and the culture isn't quite so brutally selfish ("free market") as other countries. I can't imagine what it's like living in the US.
>A report issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services estimated the cost of malpractice insurance to doctors alone at $6.3 billion in 2002; with an additional cost of $60–108 billion related to the practice of defensive medicine, i.e., costs related to physician behavior in response to the threat of a lawsuit alleging medical negligence
Not to mention that malpractice claims paid has decreased substantially (55.7%) in the last 2 decades [1].
[0]: https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...
https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/01/08/medical-marketi...
> Mean compensation amounts and the percentage of paid claims exceeding $1 million increased
I'm not saying it's a huge component of healthcare costs overall, I'm just saying malpractice not a good profit motive.
I'm curious how you know the hospital was "happy" about it though. I ask because a close friend is a nurse/midwife who delivers a lot of babies and I find it very hard to believe that caregivers, at least, would be happy about this outcome. I also find it hard to believe that the hospital administration would reward them for this outcome; indeed, hospital administration usually inclines toward bureaucracy aimed at preventing mistakes, rather than incentives to create mistakes.
Under a single-payer system, new providers would still need to train on the job; mistakes could still happen; and the provision of care to mitigate those mistakes would still cost money. Doctors and nurses don't work for free just because of a mistake, even under a single-payer system. Administrators would still get paid too. In general, medical employees get paid to treat people; that is true regardless of how patient insurance is structured.
I don't think customers should pay extra for medical mistakes; but I also don't think providers in a for-profit healthcare system intentionally and happily create medical mistakes for the purpose of profit.
US hospital did a terrible job of splinting it, told me to come back following day to see a surgeon. (Cost $1000+, high copay since I didn´t yet have my work insurance which didn´t kick in for another month etc.)
Went back home and googled it. NHS treatment, splint for 6 weeks do not disturb splint under any circumstances, followed by simple physiotherapy. I re-splinted using a plastic spoon handle (which is perfect for this btw.) and today the finger is completely recovered.
A year after all this, I ran into a guy at a rental place in the US who had a little finger sticking out at right angles, and which was functionally immobile. He´d had the operation - several years previously, you could see the stiches. Finger had never recovered properly.
But you can see where the profit incentive would lie for the American hospital.
> Without tackling the obesity/sedentary/nutrition problems the healthcare issue will persist. > Similarly the opioid/meth epidemics of the last 2 decades are not (just) healthcare problems
I've just been called in for a check up on my blood pressure and if it had worstened, I would on the end of quite a lot of dietary and excerise advice in an attemp to avoid additional medication. Many GPs in the UK has teamed up with Parkrun and now prescribe park run participation for certain patients and conditions.
In terms of Parkrun, there's no data sharing. GP Practices simply encourage patients to go running and have all the details of their local parkrun to hand https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/a776238/parkrun-uk-teams-up-...
Medical privacy is one of those places where I wonder if a personal desire for privacy might hurt society as a whole — Almost, but not quite, like the tragedy of the commons.
Still, it’s easy for me to say that, none of my embarrassing aspects have medical consequences.
Unlike Private companies sharing our data with other private companies?
Disclaimer: Medicare For All (single payer) supporter
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2019/08/04/as-sande... (As Sanders And Warren Attack, Health Insurer Profits Soar; "Take Humana, which last week said it made more than $1 billion in profits in the second quarter and raised its earnings and revenue forecast for the rest of the year thanks to growth of seniors signing up to Medicare Advantage plans. Cigna, too, which said it made more than $1 billion in the second-quarter, also increased its earnings forecast last week for the rest of the year. And the week before, Anthem, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, also reported more than $1 billion in profits in its second quarter and said its profits are ahead of expectations for the year due in part to the money its making off of government contracts with Medicare and Medicaid programs. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group's UnitedHealthcare health insurance unit reported last month $2.6 billion in earnings from operations in the second quarter and the parent company boosted its earnings forecast for 2019.")
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/05/top-health-insurers-profit-s... (As Obamacare twists in political winds, top insurers made $6 billion)
https://www.gq.com/story/eat-the-health-care-ceos (Last year, 62 CEOs of health-care companies made a combined total of $1.1 billion in compensation. That's according to a new report out from Axios, which coincidentally notes that CEO compensation eclipses what the Centers for Disease Control spent on chronic disease prevention by $157 million; The average CEO makes $18 million annually while one out of every five Americans is struggling with medical debt.)
Those profits (which you mention they're optimizing for) are dollars that could be used to improve healthcare delivery. That's actual care someone could receive, instead of going to unnecessary middlemen and shareholders.