Research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?'

#1

Not diet related but health care industry related… speaks volumes.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

(Candice) #2

Wow!

(Cywgdave) #3

3 things,

1, Is there anyone here surprised about this concept? (very tongue-in-cheek)

  1. Not surprising that the concept is being raised, as many here have said, the sickness care system doesn’t want healthy people, it’s bad for business.

and, 3. I think that articles like this are a good thing. Especially in mainstream media (I do realize CNBC has a specific audience but it is still mainstream news), gives us something to point to when others dismiss our comments as being a “conspiracy”. The more of these there are the more we can point to them to make our point.

(Diane) #4

I have worked in the healthcare industry (medical research) for the past 25 years. I have worked with caring, dedicated healthcare providers and patients struggling with debilitating and chronic diseases. This article is truly appalling in its implications. I am glad to see it shared here, it’s good to know what we’re up against, even if (hopefully) it’s the position of a small, appallingly callous, minority.

#5

even if (hopefully) it’s the position of a small, appallingly callous, minority.

Small and callous, but also influential, powerful and dangerous.

(Diane) #6

Yeah. That.

(Doug) #7

Is curing patients a sustainable business model?

Yes, but not without moving from disease to disease, and even then not possible to maintain revenue forever, logically.

Selling people drugs is a titanically large business; how much of those profits would be willingly given up?

Doctors that receive payments from drug companies tend to prescribe those companies’ offerings to a greater extent than other doctors. Higher payments to doctors results in even higher rates of prescriptions. Direct marketing to doctors makes up a larger amount of monetary expenditures for drug companies than does drug research and development. Ouch.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #8

It’s one of the effects of the corporatization of medicine, along with the need for marketing and customer service representatives. While I agree that medical practices should be efficiently run, they are not—or should not be—businesses. The reason is that a corporation is responsible to its shareholders, whereas a doctor is responsible to his or her patients. When the business manager dictates policy to the doctors, instead of the doctors dictating policy to the business manager, medical care suffers.

At some point our society will have to decide whether we want our medical care from organizations that owe their shareholders regular dividends, or from people who want us to get well?

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #9

It’s more sustainable for insurance and their reinsurance companies:

It’s less sustainable for drug companies. They’re still looking for a time machine so they can stop Jonas Salk from curing polio.

A shift to preventative and functional medicine and away from symptomatic treatment and emergent care would be more sustainable for hospitals and medical practitioners. Might be less good for makers of medical devices. If folks can eat steaks and not potatoes and dodge getting an implantable AED and a CPAP, that’s not so good for them.

The shift to preventative, functional, and curative medicine would be what’s termed creative destruction in economics. There would be growth and profitability in some industries, and some shrinkage and bankruptcy in others. I think Dr. Schoonbee is correct in that health and life insurance companies cannot afford the epidemic of metabolic syndrome and ineffective expensive treatments.

(Ken) #10

One thing people fail to realize is that the public considers medicine to be a profession, while medical industry participants consider it a business. The best business is repeat business. This not so much applies to doctors, but to all the industries that support them, including those who determine what doctors are taught, both in medical school and information on treatment doctrines they receive afterwards in their practices.