The Waste of America's Health Care System in 1 Chart

[FarAway Sooner]

I'm plenty sympathetic about how it works.  Or, at least, I'm plenty clinical about it.  In my industry, you kinda got to try to be objective in how you understand firms' behavior.

I've seen the data around drug trial failure rates.  I've seen the data around the proliferating expense curve as the failures happen higher up the curve.  I understand those challenges.

But everything I've read (and I'll admit, it's not that much, which is one reason I'm asking the question here) says that the sector as a whole is phenomenally profitable.  Far above average rates for other industries over any appreciable stretch of time.

A lot of M&A activity might be because of high failure rates.  Or it could just be that the biggest fish, sitting on mountains of cash, realize that the industry has sufficiently high barriers to entry (due to the failure rates cited above) that they'll get a better return on investment by using lots of that cash to gobble up the medium-sized fish (who are only sitting on smaller hills of cash) even when their stock is priced reasonably? 

I haven't followed the valuations patterns for big pharma companies, but I can imagine that they're pretty volatile over time--and that would leave the best funded firms in a great position to take over the others. 

On the other hand, I could also imagine them being a bunch of vampire squids latched onto the face of humanity, growing rich off our suffering and misery and death.

8)

[FarAway Sooner]

6] Really last point - I'm not disagreeing with the earlier comments or the data presented.  I just think that the issue is much more complicated than "people are greedy and game the system."  Remember, people are always look out for their best interests and will try to game the system.  Even on this website we have people alerting themselves to sales, giving away games, and discussing price trends for games.  We do the exact same thing everywhere.  It is called self interest.

So, we can say that the American health care cost/high mortality issues are best summarized by saying "people are greedy, whether they're gaming the system or eating too much".  I can buy that.

I have some interesting stats I ran across on the state of the educational system in America, but I'll save that for another thread.

[LongBlade]

6] Really last point - I'm not disagreeing with the earlier comments or the data presented.  I just think that the issue is much more complicated than "people are greedy and game the system."  Remember, people are always look out for their best interests and will try to game the system.  Even on this website we have people alerting themselves to sales, giving away games, and discussing price trends for games.  We do the exact same thing everywhere.  It is called self interest.

So, we can say that the American health care cost/high mortality issues are best summarized by saying "people are greedy, whether they're gaming the system or eating too much".  I can buy that.

I have some interesting stats I ran across on the state of the educational system in America, but I'll save that for another thread.

I can agree to that, though I'd say "people act in their own self-interests."

We can create incentives for people to behave differently but we should avoid mandating certain behaviors.

[Labbug]

People may think they are acting in their self interest, but the longer I live, the more I believe they have no idea what is really in their self interest.

[Windigo]

People may think they are acting in their self interest, but the longer I live, the more I believe they have no idea what is really in their self interest.

Quoted for truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

short term gain for long term pain my new forum bud!!!!

[LongBlade]

People may think they are acting in their self interest, but the longer I live, the more I believe they have no idea what is really in their self interest.

That sounds good on paper but doesn't work so well when someone else starts telling you how to live your life.

[Labbug]

People may think they are acting in their self interest, but the longer I live, the more I believe they have no idea what is really in their self interest.

That sounds good on paper but doesn't work so well when someone else starts telling you how to live your life.

I agree with you.  But there has to be some boundaries for a civil society to exist.  The real debate is what those boundaries are.  Some boundaries seem to be obvious: don't murder, don't steal, treat people as you wish to be treated.  As for me I don't want someone telling me how to live, I want to be responsible for myself and my actions.