[luckylion]

> Your analogy with cellphones doesn't relate this because cellphones work.

So do humans. But sometimes both of them stop working, or some part of them stops working. The service provider will not care if you break your cellphone, they only provide the cell service.

The problem with the idea of "you pay a flat fee for your health, and someone else makes sure you're healthy" doesn't work unless you also give them control over most of your life: what and how much (and when?) you eat, when and how much you sleep, any other substance you (ab-) use, what and how much physical activity you engage in. But who wants that?

Malpractice is a serious issue, but it won't be solved by "payment on success only", you just won't have anyone take on cases that are somewhat complicated, and then litigate forever to define what "success" means.

[detrites]

Mostly agree. The point of my bringing up the Chinese story was to highlight how far medicine, and apparently only medicine, seems to diverge from common principles, and - expounding later - how this is coincident with its failures.

Something is up with healthcare, and I don't claim to know exactly what it is, or what the solutions would be.

Where I don't agree is your misinterpreting the analogy to self-serve. A cellphone that works as bad as cans on a string is analogous to the healthcare industry working as bad as accidents. No one should put up with either.

But with healthcare, we do.