<story><title>The profit-obsessed monster destroying American emergency rooms</title><url>https://www.vox.com/health-care/374820/emergency-rooms-private-equity-hospitals-profits-no-surprises</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>&amp;gt; The thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t get mentioned much&lt;p&gt;This gets mentioned every time. The regulation boogeyman always shows up. If only there were fewer rules... everyone could make more money, the little guy would be able to enter and play fast and loose, and nobody would do the wrongdoing those rules were meant to correct&amp;#x2F;prevent. Yes, there are regulations in health care. There are regulations in almost every industry, and yes, they can be a pain to deal with. Yet people still start businesses, make money, grumble endlessly about those regulations, and society marches on. As part of the general public, who are often the victims of business&amp;#x27;s negative externalities, I&amp;#x27;m grateful that our government still manages to regulate businesses.</text></item><item><author>giantg2</author><text>The thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t get mentioned much in these conversations that I&amp;#x27;ve personally seen play a big role is the regulation. When you have highly complex regulations, you end up consolidating practices. As regulations increase, the number of distinct providers&amp;#x2F;owners decrease. Many individuals don&amp;#x27;t want to run their own practice due to the complexities (insurance, etc) that exist beyond the work (treating people). It doesn&amp;#x27;t make a lot of sense to deal with the insurance, billing, recordkeepeing, etc for a single physician or two. They wouldn&amp;#x27;t be able to compete with the larger and more effiecent practices that have more bargaining power with insurance companies anyways.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bluecalm</author><text>Or maybe regulation is in fact a problem. In my country there is less regulation in healthcare services. I can walk into multiple private facilities in my town, get full blood panel with almost everything you can think of included (hormones, vitamins&amp;#x2F;mineral levels, liver markers etc) for around 100$. The results are going to be available online the same day (with the exception of those that require more lab time). This is fully private enterprise which has nothing to do with &amp;quot;universal healthcare&amp;quot; my country has.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t need prescription or doctor recommendation to get it done. I can also take my own urine&amp;#x2F;hair&amp;#x2F;swabs, walk into a lab, pay and have the requests results online in a few days.&lt;p&gt;If I need MRI I can usually schedule it for the next day in multiple private points and again the results are going to be there the same day. The price is around 200 bucks for say cervical spine.&lt;p&gt;How is it in your country? Do you know how much is required to get those basic services in other countries?</text></comment>
<story><title>The profit-obsessed monster destroying American emergency rooms</title><url>https://www.vox.com/health-care/374820/emergency-rooms-private-equity-hospitals-profits-no-surprises</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>&amp;gt; The thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t get mentioned much&lt;p&gt;This gets mentioned every time. The regulation boogeyman always shows up. If only there were fewer rules... everyone could make more money, the little guy would be able to enter and play fast and loose, and nobody would do the wrongdoing those rules were meant to correct&amp;#x2F;prevent. Yes, there are regulations in health care. There are regulations in almost every industry, and yes, they can be a pain to deal with. Yet people still start businesses, make money, grumble endlessly about those regulations, and society marches on. As part of the general public, who are often the victims of business&amp;#x27;s negative externalities, I&amp;#x27;m grateful that our government still manages to regulate businesses.</text></item><item><author>giantg2</author><text>The thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t get mentioned much in these conversations that I&amp;#x27;ve personally seen play a big role is the regulation. When you have highly complex regulations, you end up consolidating practices. As regulations increase, the number of distinct providers&amp;#x2F;owners decrease. Many individuals don&amp;#x27;t want to run their own practice due to the complexities (insurance, etc) that exist beyond the work (treating people). It doesn&amp;#x27;t make a lot of sense to deal with the insurance, billing, recordkeepeing, etc for a single physician or two. They wouldn&amp;#x27;t be able to compete with the larger and more effiecent practices that have more bargaining power with insurance companies anyways.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>charleslmunger</author><text>&amp;gt;Yet people still start businesses, make money, grumble endlessly about those regulations, and society marches on.&lt;p&gt;One such regulation is &amp;quot;certificate of need&amp;quot; laws, where you effectively need to ask the incumbent for permission to open your would-be competitor.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;spn.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;certificate-of-need-laws&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;spn.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;certificate-of-need-laws&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>