<story><title>What would a “good” WebMD look like?</title><url>https://blog.tjcx.me/p/why-is-webmd-so-awful</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>googlryas</author><text>A fairly straightforward answer is that the government&amp;#x27;s goals are not necessarily aligned with your own. You, presumably, care very much about your own personal health. You also care about other people&amp;#x27;s health, but you really, really care about your own health, and probably don&amp;#x27;t want to die earlier than you need to.&lt;p&gt;The government, on the other hand, doesn&amp;#x27;t generally care about individuals, and is working on a statistical level. A good government wants the population overall to be in good health, and has a budget within which it must operate. It may make more sense for the government to ignore your rare disease if detection&amp;#x2F;treatment is expensive, and that money can be better used to save, say, 10 people with a more common disease.&lt;p&gt;Now, if the government was just providing health information, and individuals were on the hook for payment, this disconnect wouldn&amp;#x27;t really exist. But if the government is also providing the healthcare services &amp;quot;for free&amp;quot; to individuals, then there is an incentive to downplay testing for rare or expensive to treat diseases due to the cost&amp;#x2F;benefit ratio.</text></item><item><author>jjar</author><text>A better question might be: Why is the private sector responsible for providing accurate health information? As this article shows, the incentives for people running medical websites and the people reading them are not aligned. I&amp;#x27;d say the UK NHS website and symptoms&amp;#x2F;medications pages hit the nail on the head - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;conditions&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;conditions&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;. It has no advertising and provides short, easily readable and actionable information on the majority of conditions and the correct way to use and take many different sorts of medication.&lt;p&gt;And crucially - if the information present is not sufficient, clear and obvious UI elements that direct the next best steps to get the help you need, whether that be ringing the non emergency helpline or immediately going to A&amp;amp;E. (It&amp;#x27;s been commented on before, but the new UK government sites are very consistently structured and open source their design systems &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;service-manual.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;design-system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;service-manual.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;design-system&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jeromegv</author><text>Is that supposed to be an advertisement for private healthcare? With insurances companies deciding based on profit margins? I&amp;#x27;d say the government incentives are a lot more aligned to have their population healthy and productive, than the insurance company looking at how much you paid for your premium and how much the treatment is.</text></comment>
<story><title>What would a “good” WebMD look like?</title><url>https://blog.tjcx.me/p/why-is-webmd-so-awful</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>googlryas</author><text>A fairly straightforward answer is that the government&amp;#x27;s goals are not necessarily aligned with your own. You, presumably, care very much about your own personal health. You also care about other people&amp;#x27;s health, but you really, really care about your own health, and probably don&amp;#x27;t want to die earlier than you need to.&lt;p&gt;The government, on the other hand, doesn&amp;#x27;t generally care about individuals, and is working on a statistical level. A good government wants the population overall to be in good health, and has a budget within which it must operate. It may make more sense for the government to ignore your rare disease if detection&amp;#x2F;treatment is expensive, and that money can be better used to save, say, 10 people with a more common disease.&lt;p&gt;Now, if the government was just providing health information, and individuals were on the hook for payment, this disconnect wouldn&amp;#x27;t really exist. But if the government is also providing the healthcare services &amp;quot;for free&amp;quot; to individuals, then there is an incentive to downplay testing for rare or expensive to treat diseases due to the cost&amp;#x2F;benefit ratio.</text></item><item><author>jjar</author><text>A better question might be: Why is the private sector responsible for providing accurate health information? As this article shows, the incentives for people running medical websites and the people reading them are not aligned. I&amp;#x27;d say the UK NHS website and symptoms&amp;#x2F;medications pages hit the nail on the head - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;conditions&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;conditions&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;. It has no advertising and provides short, easily readable and actionable information on the majority of conditions and the correct way to use and take many different sorts of medication.&lt;p&gt;And crucially - if the information present is not sufficient, clear and obvious UI elements that direct the next best steps to get the help you need, whether that be ringing the non emergency helpline or immediately going to A&amp;amp;E. (It&amp;#x27;s been commented on before, but the new UK government sites are very consistently structured and open source their design systems &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;service-manual.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;design-system&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;service-manual.nhs.uk&amp;#x2F;design-system&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nickff</author><text>The terse version of this is to say that the government would prefer you die cheaply rather than live at great expense.</text></comment>