Health care is turning into a consumer product
It&#x27;s interesting to see that &quot;Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America&quot; compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm.<p>Another point is that US healthcare is considered the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of outcomes compared to the other developed countries.<p>So you basically get the worst performing being also the most expensive. Which doesn&#x27;t really fit the view that less government involvement results in a more efficient system.
Well, I guess it is more efficient if the expected outcome is a larger profit for different private companies and middlemen and not the well-being of the rest of the population.<p>My hope is that this new-found energy in healthcare products doesn&#x27;t follow the traditional VC-backed approach of building a product, taking over markets through aggressive marketing and shady closed-door dealings and operating at a loss only to then monetize the shit out of everything.<p>Theranos really embodied some of these fears, and I&#x27;m not sure we&#x27;ll live in a better world if our health will be in the hands of people that have a financial incentive to tell us we&#x27;re more sick&#x2F;healthy than we really are.