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After Appalachian hospitals merged into a monopoly, their ERs slowed to a crawl
(kffhealthnews.org)
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Resemble a monopoly, yes, in the way a horse resembles a zebra. They might look similar but are decidedly different. Let's break it down.
Private care monopoly: having no competition to lose business to, cuts corners as much as possible, maximizing profits while degrading quality of service. Can be ostensibly held to standards of care by local authorities but, being the only option, can often tell them to piss off.
Socialized hospital: being neither beholden to shareholders nor having a profit motive, has no financial incentive to cut corners provided the hospital is adequately funded. Funding is often contingent on achieving standards of care. Government can step in and reform underperforming facilities.
Given your previous replies, I suspect I'm going to regret this comment, but I'm feeling like rolling the dice.
True. Let’s see how that plays out
Unless there is anyone anywhere ever watching the budget. I’ve known government employees. They are cost conscious.
la la land
So a rough approximation of the free market’s natural incentives, except based on a central auditing committee instead of crowdsourced decision-making. So almost as good a system as a free market. Almost.
Markets do this too. They do it faster, better, and with less coercion.
That's a lot of words and quotes when it would have been a lot faster to simply say:
"I am unable to contradict anything you said without pulling points out of context, completely disregarding others, and (my favorite of all) ending with a point that not only has been contradicted multiple times elsewhere, but is directly, stunningly contradicted by the very article we are commenting about."
Thanks for the laugh, mate. You yanks are drowning in your kool-aid while screaming at anyone offering help that you're Olympic swimmers.