Health care is turning into a consumer product
It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" 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.Another point is that US healthcare is considered the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of outcomes compared to the other developed countries.So you basically get the worst performing being also the most expensive. Which doesn'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.My hope is that this new-found energy in healthcare products doesn'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.Theranos really embodied some of these fears, and I'm not sure we'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're more sick/healthy than we really are.