[bawana]

Corporations increase complexity as they grow - each department needs to maximize its revenue - thus complexification is justification for increased budgetary needs. Healthcare is becoming increasingly corporatized. All the talk about outcomes is just that. TALK. It has been so difficult to actually understand how to improve efficiency because there is no good measure for it. Everyone is arguing about outcomes and what actually is a meaningful measure. The net result is laughable - everyone is looking at Press-Ganey scores (basically a popularity contest as to how their 'customers' feel). Real outcomes take decades to measure and for-profit healthcare systems are run by CEOs who want to maximize their quarterly bonus(BTW the CEO of AETNA got a $500million bonus for retiring-that came from premiums) It is criminal to profit from the unintended misery of the unfortunate. The practitioners should be paid. But everyone else who is pushing paper, massaging electrons or jawboning about the share price is just dead weight on the system.

Ironically, the author found peace by hiring a consultant - back to square one - a one on one transaction between two humans without a middleman.

[bogomipz]

>"Healthcare is becoming increasingly corporatized."

Hasn't healthcare been corporatized since the dawn of HMOs almost 50 years ago though?

[bawana]

HMOs were a minor player 50 years ago. They are a euphemism for the corporate cancer that maximizes profits at the expense of the sick. Even when I started working in Mass 25 years ago, it was one of the few states with HMOs. They have continued to morph and are now ripe for purchase by the more profitable corporations (pharma) CVS buying Aetna is the first shot. Although Aetna is an insurance company, they offered many stripped down 'products' = HMO like plans.