YES IT CAN GET WORSE – Health Care Edition
by Tom aka Rusty
YES IT CAN GET WORSE – Health Care Edition
Business Week, (a Bloomberg publication), has written some friendly advice for the newly minted elite MBAs who cannot get rich quick on Wall Street as is their birthright.
No, not Plastics. Health care!
MBAs in health care are hardly new, but the thoughts of legions of newly minted Top 20 MBAs invading health care is very frightening.
(Many health care clinicians and executives have earned MBAs, but usually have some actual experience with health care, rather than just showing up with a get-rich-quick attitude.)
So the fresh faced wunderkins may soon be invading an integrated delivery system near you, anxious for a little white coat M&A.
_______________________________
Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
Update: Rdan here…..Not too late to start! or click on ad in header.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but I think we had that tried already, it was called HMO’s health maintenance organizations. In the early to mid-90’s it was supposed to save the day and at the end of the day it was a TOTAL F#*K-UP. All it does is add more middlemen who have no idea what they are doing. No Thanks.
Rusty,
This is too easy. From ABC about Obama’s latest support for the MBA’s on Wall Street. (If I was a newly minted MBA I’d still be heading to Wall Street – that’s were the money is)
As recently as just a few weeks ago, President Obama called massive Wall Street bonuses “obscene,” language that fit right in with his previous descriptions for them such as “the height of irresponsibility” and “shameful,” an “outrage” and a violation “our fundamental values.”
But in an interview published today with Bloomberg Business Week, the president struck a different note.
Asked about the $17 million bonus given to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and the $9 million bonuses going to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO, the president said, “I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen. I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”
“I do think that the compensation packages that we’ve seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance,” the president said — a rather serene response relative to some of his previous language on the matter.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that President Obama had changed his tone at all, pointing out that the president has said “countless times” that he doesn’t begrudge wealth or success.
Discussing the bonuses, Mr. Obama told the reporters, “listen, $17 million is an extraordinary amount of money. Of course, there are some baseball players who are making more than that who don’t get to the World Series either. So I’m shocked by that as well.”
Link is here (The other’s don’t work I beleive)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/wall-street-bonuses-president-obama-once-called-obscene-and-shameful-now-he-doesnt-begrudge.html
Sounds like Obama is not begruging those guys their success!!!
Islam will change
Slugs,
A CEO’s compensation of 25 million, divided by the World Bank standard for poverty of $1.25 per day is thus:
25,000,000 / 456 = 54,824
And weak global aggregate demand is almost as unpopular as an issue, as that of a person’s contribution to society? But where things begin to get really weird, is when our leaders claim ending our dependence on foreign oil will solve our problems when this would weaken global aggregate demand even further.
It seems Obama might have been scolded for hinting that wealth distribution should be addressed. That is a no-no, Leaders who go to far, have shortened careers and — lives when necessary.
I’m sorry but how doe this count as something worth posting? No link to the article, nothing new added to the concept. Just a rant against MBAs?
Slugs,
If Bernanke’s explanation for the cause of the recent collapse is compared from what it was just after the collapse, to his more recent position, a similar shift to Obama’s shift is apparent. Early on, Bernanke put much more emphasis on the role on how the system was overwhelmed with capital and foreign in-flows etc.. But now he presents more of an interest-rate and regulation case. And of course the overwhelmed with investment analysis leads to a wealth-redistribution conclusion.
What we will have ultimately is a ‘run on the banks’ story, and if we don’t fight back, like some did when some of our history books claimed that the US won the Viet Nam war, then, The People will have squandered yet another opportunity to make things right. They have the media — We have these sites.
David,
You are catching the tone. There is a new editorial style in the making here, with little bit of talk-radio indignation-as-substance, a little bit of Eschaton’s obscure half-line comments with a link that is meant to make the intent of the comment clear. The result seems to be a further dilution of substance and standard.
Some contributors are keeping up the effort to say something meaningful, do so clearly, and do so in a way that can lead to discussion of the facts. But editorial sneering is becoming more common.
***and at the end of the day it was a TOTAL F#*K-UP. All it does is add more middlemen who have no idea what they are doing. No Thanks.***
Sigh … That’s really a quite incorrect and pretty mindless characterization. In point of fact, HMOs probably did slow the relentless rise in US health costs for a few years … then the costs started rising again. And no, HMOs do not now, and never have added middlemen. They replace the insurance company which is nothing if not a middleman.
It is true that part of HMO/PPO lower premium costs were shifted from traditional insurance plans which became more expensive. But studies agree that the overall rise in healthcare costs was slowed for a while by the affect of HMO/PPO plans. (Some rise in costs is due to population increase and population aging so some of the number sets would show a small increase even if costs were actually stable)
Here’s an analysis
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/15/2/185.pdf
And here are more than enough numbers
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf
In short — just about every aspect of the US healthcare system is a disaster. Contrary to what you think, HMOs are probably one of the better parts.
You really think MBAs can do harm to the nation’s healthcare system? Short of poisoning the nation’s water supplies in order to stimulate business, it’s hard to see how. OTOH, things are always darkest just before they get even worse.
kharris,
I am sorry. I shall try to not dilute the substance – and to meet your dull and redundant standards. Eventually we might be able to have the same conversation over and over and then we could all conform together and confirm-and-conform-and-confirm and always pretending to know better than others while also pretending not to. I am sorry kharris, I do want to be more like you and if you will be nice to me I will praise you and you can always ignore me as you have in the past. But of course now you have a little friend so for today I understand your courage and so go ahead and get in a shot or two, be brave and add names to your innuendo and maybe even a little support here and there. But then of course someone who also has access to a great deal of information might be able to respond to your insults directly so be careful — ‘meaningful’ means different things to different people, and the line between conformity and censorship may be dangerous to cross with so few friends, and the conformist side of that line is a very safe place.
David:
Bears are sophisticated people who generally follow this thread and the discussions.
You could try http://www.bloomberg.com if you are research-disabled.
And you might try to get a little sense of humor.
Not every post can be (or need be) an opus filled with charts and graphs and statistics – or does it?
I’m working on a 5000 word piece on integrated delivery systems – maybe we should post that? I’m also working on a piece about how Ronald Reagan caused the current blizzard, now that might be popular.
Gee, sense of humor anyone?
rl love,
25,000,000 / 456 = 54,824
The numbers don’t look so bad when you use earth days in a pluto year.
25,000,000 / 90,410.5 = 276.5
I feel very silly right now for not seeing the great richness of the post. You are right I need to get a sense of humor I complete missed how funny it is that the author even wrote the post. Thanks for pointing that angle out to me.
I disagree.
More MBAs in the health care industry would be a good thing. Professional ethics and physician arrogance have led a far to large share of the health care industry to be managed by physicians. Physicians went to med school because they were better at science than they were at business administration. Many of the problems with the health care system (including quality of care) are fundamentally problems of poor business administration, not weak physician skills.
Getting somebody who is at least trained to do business administration and sees this as their job into the industry is likely to be a positive thing. MBAs also tend to be far less ideological than Economists in how they view the world.
Cantab,
Are there any jobs on Pluto?
save_the_rustbelt
Gee, sense of humor anyone?
Kharris is on a quixotic mission to purify the world. Humor is for people without a windmill to hunt.
Well if MBAs actually understood their societal goal to be efficient business administration that would be one thing. But too many seem to see that goal as maximizing their own compensation, the whole idea that businesses are at least in part to deliver services and not to maximize executive compensation.
We already have a medical system where actual delivery of care by practitioners is scored as a ‘Medical Loss’ and where hospitals which were mostly run as essentially a public utility or directly as a charity or as an adjunct to a medical school simply were transferred into private entity profit centers. If I thought the MBAs were being brought in to be paid a decent salary to support practioners in delivery of care it would be one thing, but excuse me if I don’t think the expectation is that they will come in bent on maximizing bonuses for hospital administrators for delivering higher profits to Humana.
STR,
I thought it was funny…as was your comment over at Althouse on the new full body see-threw scanners the other day…
I specifically liked the old movie reference about plastics..
Islam will change
Well, the important part is you added a penny to Rdan’s income.
Capitalist whore,
As testiment to my commitment to objectivity, I think sockpuppets should be allowed to manage hospitals too! (Cantab)
With such a spotlight on the healthcare and education sectors it only makes sense to get an MBA and work in healthcare. Time was an issue for me so I decided to research the school mentioned above. Their business school was named after Nathan Bisk whose partners with schools and offers many online courses. I think it’s a win/win for everyone!