This is a peculiar perspective to see on HN. Isn't the entire business model of startups and YC based on ruthlessly "disrupting" industries using efficiency gains achieved through technology, causing the same sort of unemployment? Why should healthcare billing and administration be any different?
I'm mostly interested why the USA suddenly becomes pro-worker when it comes to this expensive and inefficient healthcare system they have. I swear you could be talking to the most hardline GOP guy who wouldn't spit on a trade unionist if they were on fire ... but if you mention, say, single-payer healthcare they'll start weeping for the all the workers in hospitals' billing departments and in health insurance companies who will lose their jobs.
I mean I don't want anyone suffering either (one would hope you'd have adequate social safety net to take care of these people until they find another job) but it's such a bizarre exemption to carve out
No, they're worried that single-payer would increase healthcare costs and/or decrease quality. They might be wrong, but that's not why they'd be worried.
I've heard that too, but I have heard on multiple occasions that this will cause a lot of people employed in the field to lose their (sometimes quite well paying) jobs working in billing.
Probably they mean most cities, look at the voting statistics in various somewhat recent elections. If you don't buy the left/right dem/repub mapping, you can look at the various stances of the actual local officials elected.
There's a large web of insurance companies, hardware and chemical companies, provider networks, and universities that benefit too greatly from the current inefficiencies to ever move away from private insurance. Hardware and chemical companies like LifeSys have contracts with insurance companies and provider networks that state the insurance will only pay for things if the tests or treatment are done with that supplier's tools and that the work will only be done if it's within the network.
For a theoretical based on what actually happened where I live, Hospital X is contractually obligated to use a specific kind of infusion pump from supplier Y and order blood tests from specific supplier Z in order to get Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage. Meanwhile the state university pushed out the other hospital in the city and heavily expanded the surviving hospital campus they sponsored to take on the increased capacity and introduce the services they were previously lacking compared to their now dead competitor. So Hospital X is just following the policy of University Network A. All of which is a common practice.
In many states the state university sponsored medical care networks are the or are close to being the biggest employers. The University Of Iowa medical network, the West Virginia University network, and University Of Pittsburgh Medical Center network all have taken over a majority of medical care functions in their states, leaving mostly specialists and those in mental health to independent practices. That exacerbates the issue of insurance and supplier contracts, because these small places that are competing with the university networks often don't bother with insurance unless it's government provided and just prefer patients pay up front instead. They lose too much time and money sorting through the myriad private insurance providers, plans, and coverage obligations without full time staff to handle that for them. Medical billing is a massive industry for a reason.
Now, if everyone wasn't chained to private insurance and juggling all of these providers, coverage limits, and contractual obligations the number of inefficiencies and thus the overall cost would decrease. We have historical examples of this even in the U.S., by comparing what happened between 1960 to 1975 and it's modern equivalent of 2005 to 2020. Healthcare costs were increasing rapidly, doctors were dwindling in number, and there weren't enough medical students for generalist fields in the 1960s just like the 2010s. The major difference is that while quality of care continued to increase through the 1960s and early 1970s, both the efficacy and quality of care has gone down since the 2000s. The several minor differences were that nationwide coverage was rarely available in the 1960s compared to the 2010s, that Medicare was spending more than it was receiving in the early 1970s thanks to how Medicare was funded in the 1960s, and that privatization of entire hospitals was uncommon and frowned upon in the 1960s because of the income impact it had on the doctors. The U.S. barely survived the 1960s medical crunch with enough government intervention, but it is dying under the weight of the 2010s medical crunch because the government can't easily intervene and is lobbied to maintain distance.
So the reason the lead figures in the American right are worried about single payer is because they won't make as much money. And they're very good at convincing people to vote against their own interests because they know those people don't care to look into complex systems too deeply. As a result many of the regular voters and workers are worried because someone told them a lie about where the money is actually being wasted and what the actual history is.
