Noam Scheiber and I on health care, finance, and so forth. No, I don't have a black eye--just bad lighting in our dining area.
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"and me", Ms M. How many degrees do you have?
It was an interesting conversation. I was struck by how you both seem to think the current risk of systemic collapse is basically over. It seems in general that the people who didn't see this coming are pretty confident that it is over. On the other hand, the people who did see this coming (Roubini, Mike Shedlock, Karl Denninger being the ones I read regularly) seem to think we are nowhere near done with this period of financial stress.
Am I interpreting your current view correctly? IF so, what are your reasons for thinking that we are through the worst of the financial stress?
I listened to your health-reform concern -- paraphrasing, removing profit motive will slow down innovation, which will actually increase cost due to the better outcomes that result from innovation.
And I still think you've missed how the system works.
A huge amount of our "innovative" treatments are already based on government investment in research. Some through universities, some private. There's a competitive grant process through NIH. And while I don't know the numbers, I'm sure that research done in government-funded labs produces much of the innovation that is refined by private sector into profitable health-market offerings. I have angel investments in some of these companies. I would argue that more investment in this kind of research might be better.
There's also a lot of comparative analysis, data mining, and clinical research done on the government dime. Nimed posted a link suggesting that was about 28% of clinical trails the other day, though that's off the top of my head.
You also suggested that our care is the best, (and most expensive?) because we're innovating the treatments for the rest of the world. That mean we're the guinea pigs? I have a lot of concern that we're prescribing a drugs instead of treating health problems. Sometimes a prescription is the required treatment; but I'm sure it's abused, particularly when it's more cost-effective for the doctor then spending time and when every time a patient walks in the door, providers seem willing to let the patient walk out with that slip with the funny signature for the pharmacy in hand.
But i also want to know why we should have to shoulder so much of the cost when we're such a small part of the world's population.
This whole notion also discounts how much research is done in other countries and then developed here because it's easier to get to market.
Finally, do you know how difficult it can be to get a product to the health care market? That's not just the FDA process; it's the competition in the market itself. What's available on that market doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what's best; big companies with profitable niches buy small competition to eliminate it all the time. That's often a desirable exit strategy for an investor; and a potential seed for creating a new market tapping the same medical demand once patent protection on the current profitable product expires.