Monday, June 23, 2008
The answer to the healthcare problem?
Letting Wal-Mart run the health care system would fix many of those problems. It's a company that understands how low prices can build market share and thus increase profits. Furthermore, it's a company with a culture of cutting costs that has shown no compunction in pushing suppliers to the wall over price. The Wal-Mart motto ought to be, "Make it cheaper, or we'll find someone who can." I'd love to see that attitude brought to bear in health care.
Of course it would drive Pelosi insane.
Read the whole thing.
(CWCID:Mish Shedlock)
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jun 23, 08:44:00 AM:
"Of course it would drive Pelosi insane." -TH
Tell her to pack light, it's a short trip.
-David
By , at
Mon Jun 23, 09:28:00 AM:
He's right. A health care system without doctors would definitely reduce costs. Until you actually get sick and need a real doctor and discover they have all retired. Have you checked the planned majors of the recent crop of valedictorians and salutatorians? In the past about 80% seemed to have premed penciled in. Rare to see any now.
Socialized medicine, here we come!
By , at
Mon Jun 23, 10:05:00 AM:
... and then let K-Mart join the party.
Attention K-Mart shoppers, two-for-one vasectomies on aisle 5 now.
Somehow, the idea of squeezing the profit motive out of medicine seems like a bad idea to me. But that's just me.
By , at
Mon Jun 23, 11:03:00 AM:
WalMart offers health care solutions that other businesses don't offer. That's a good thing.
Right now, companies such as CIGNA are squeezing the profit right out of my pocket so that their top players can make big bucks. Why shouldn't WalMart squeeze those guys?
Several years ago, some enterprising individual thought up the idea of stay at home workers typing up health care forms and invoices for individual doctors. The target was the government sponsored health care programs that changed their requirements to electronic submissions rather than handwritten forms faxed in. This program was a boon for everyone involved except the large insurance companies.
The stay at home worker was smashed in court because the large health care companies said that only they had the expertise to take care of billing and personal records. As a result, all of us pay more for health care.
Dave
By , at
Tue Jun 24, 12:32:00 AM:
My father was a doctor.
I had to work my way through college, with no help from my father.
Malpractice insurance premiums were responsible.
Any cure for the health system that doesn't include tort reform is treating the symptoms, not the disease.
By 
SR, at
Tue Jun 24, 02:52:00 PM:
Primary care such as that mentioned in the article, isn't what is breaking the US healthcare bank (it is breaking primary care physicians). Specialty care and hospitalization especially that of the elderly sucks up quite a lot of healthcare dollars (especially in the last year of life) Wal-Mart will stay out of that business, you can be sure.
By SR, at
Tue Jun 24, 02:53:00 PM:
On the other hand, anything that would drive Nancy Pelosi crazy has my vote.
