[snowwrestler]

Health care companies seek a profit because innovation takes capital investment, and the only way to build capital is to make a profit. The article admits to the value of this when it talks about how U.S. consumers subsidize innovations that have global benefits (like MRI machines).

I totally disagree with the idea that health care companies actively seek to drive patients to bankruptcy. Can you provide any proof of this other than your own opinion?

[jpdoctor]

One example: One of Elizabeth Warren's crusades before the banking crisis exposed that 46% of all bankruptcies circa 2007 were medically induced.

http://www.pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf

It isn't exactly news that the industry maximizes profits.

The mere fact that you chose to write "Health care companies seek a profit because innovation takes capital investment, and the only way to build capital is to make a profit" is indicative of the problem. It's almost as if you can't imagine any other means of solving the problem.

I don't think you're alone either. In quantitative medical rankings, the US is 33rd in life expectancy and 34th in infant mortality (behind Cuba!) yet is #1 in per-capita spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mor...

[danielweber]

46% of all bankruptcies circa 2007 were medically induced.

There were obvious problems with Warren's methodology. If I live in a system with excellent government healthcare, and I end up paralyzed, my family might still go through bankruptcy because they've lost their primary income.

The number is more like 1/4 than 1/2. 26% of bankruptcies have medical debts exceeding $1000. Obviously that includes someone owing $4000 to a dentist as well as someone owing $450,000 to an oncologist, so the real number is some portion of 26%.

[jpdoctor]

> The number is more like 1/4 than 1/2.

Great. So the number of people that have been profitteered into bankruptcy is only 1/2 of what I mentioned.

It doesn't change the basic fact: Profiting handsomely from the sick and dying used to be considered unethical. Now, it is "just business".

[snowwrestler]

The real question is what percentage of medical patients go bankrupt at all.

[snowwrestler]

There is no other known means of solving the problem of funding long-term innovation. This was one of the major lessons of the 20th century.