This article from Wired about the thinking process going into Oscar Health, which wants to be UBER of health care, (and which Alphabet now invests in), with barely a mention of actual patient care, posits how the market through tech will solve the health care industry, by tossing Big Data at it. (Please note that Jared Kushner's brother is one of the founders)
"The industry in America is a mess: yoked together with confusing regulations, perverse incentives, and computers running Windows XP." And .. "The goal of Oscar is to do to health care what Uber did to the taxi industry: use smart digital technology to make everything faster and easier for customers, and then use the data gathered to build radically new services, which can collect more data that leads to new services" and " actually build a product that can get lower unit costs by having fewer doctors and hospitals at the same or even better quality with better user satisfaction—that would be the model in a nutshell"
Not, say: "infant mortality in the U.S. is much higher than comparable nations, and three times as high as Singapore" or "American individual entrepreneurship is crippled by health insurance costs driven by profiteering" or "People are dying in the street because they lack access to health care, particularly mental health care."
Oscar's big ideas:
1) Less direct access to doctors. Screen doctors minutely. Get More Doctor Data. 2) Be an insurance company. 3) App-based health care; telecare, make coherent records. 4) Surge pricing, but let's phrase that in reverse as "incentives"
I have no doubt that all of this might lead to a more profitable insurance company, and some efficiencies will be gained.
But every modern version of socialized health care in advanced countries is already much more efficient than any real world version of a tech-centered, profiteering health care model.
2 Comments:
"Free-market capitalism? They tried that in Russian and it didn't work."
In a shocking contrast of tone..
This article from Wired about the thinking process going into Oscar Health, which wants to be UBER of health care, (and which Alphabet now invests in), with barely a mention of actual patient care, posits how the market through tech will solve the health care industry, by tossing Big Data at it. (Please note that Jared Kushner's brother is one of the founders)
It's stunningly, deliberately, misguided.
https://www.wired.com/story/oscar-health-ceo-mario-schlosser-interview/
The big ideas:
The main problem is, apparently:
"The industry in America is a mess: yoked together with confusing regulations, perverse incentives, and computers running Windows XP." And .. "The goal of Oscar is to do to health care what Uber did to the taxi industry: use smart digital technology to make everything faster and easier for customers, and then use the data gathered to build radically new services, which can collect more data that leads to new services" and " actually build a product that can get lower unit costs by having fewer doctors and hospitals at the same or even better quality with better user satisfaction—that would be the model in a nutshell"
Not, say: "infant mortality in the U.S. is much higher than comparable nations, and three times as high as Singapore" or "American individual entrepreneurship is crippled by health insurance costs driven by profiteering" or "People are dying in the street because they lack access to health care, particularly mental health care."
Oscar's big ideas:
1) Less direct access to doctors. Screen doctors minutely. Get More Doctor Data.
2) Be an insurance company.
3) App-based health care; telecare, make coherent records.
4) Surge pricing, but let's phrase that in reverse as "incentives"
I have no doubt that all of this might lead to a more profitable insurance company, and some efficiencies will be gained.
But every modern version of socialized health care in advanced countries is already much more efficient than any real world version of a tech-centered, profiteering health care model.
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