>> This isn't a 3 person scam, there are 10s of thousands of people capable and it only takes a single company getting a single practice in the area to start doing ${RADICALLY_MORE_EFFECTIVE_THING}
This isnt an iOS app where 10,000 developers compete to bring prices down. This is medicine. You cant just compete, the Nephrology Board has to approve these standards of practice. Funny, they also benefit when there isnt progress.
Lets tackle it another way -- if medicine is a perfect competition, how is are hospital bills one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the US? Shouldnt programmers have made it all efficient and made everything free like in software?
> This is medicine. You cant just compete, the Nephrology Board has to approve these standards of practice
The “Nephrology Board” is only one country. Even supposing US medical institutions decided to block a treatment being developed in the US, they have no authority to stop its development in other countries. If it was seen to be working in other countries, they’d find it very hard to justify refusing to allow it in the US.
But politically I think the scenario you are describing is very unlikely - the US medical system justifies its “uniqueness” (such as extreme expensiveness) on the grounds that “we have the best medical technology on the planet”. Blocking medical advances would undermine that justification, and hence is not in the best interests of the people who control the US medical system
You say this as if the only way this happens is through a big top down conspiracy. In reality it's several separate actors with aligned incentives that create unnecessary headwinds to the adoption of cost saving medical advances
To pretend that there aren't groups who will work to delay and limit the rollout of industry shattering technology like this is naive at best.
> You say this as if the only way this happens is through a big top down conspiracy. In reality it's several separate actors with aligned incentives that create unnecessary headwinds to the adoption of cost saving medical advances
I didn’t intend my comment as saying anything about whether this suggested phenomenon is “top-down” or “bottom-up”. I think my two counterarguments-“other countries exist” and “contrary to collective political self-interest” have about as much force in either case.
> To pretend that there aren't groups who will work to delay and limit the rollout of industry shattering technology like this is naive at best.
I never claimed such groups don’t exist - I’m sure there are some individuals and groups who (consciously or not) possess the agenda you describe. The real question is whether they will succeed in achieving that goal-I’m sceptical they will make any significant difference to whether or when these advances are achieved
Research is controlled by separate IRBs, not the ABIM.
In regards to "tackling it in another way", more than market efficiency goes into play of how expensive something is. Lots of people can build houses, that doesn't mean houses are now $10 it means houses aren't 500,000,000 dollars because one guy can build them and wants to make 1,000x margin each time. I'm not sure what programmers or software has to do with it, billions are spent on that as well it's not just free. FWIW I come from a healthcare background, not a software one.
This isnt an iOS app where 10,000 developers compete to bring prices down. This is medicine. You cant just compete, the Nephrology Board has to approve these standards of practice. Funny, they also benefit when there isnt progress.
Lets tackle it another way -- if medicine is a perfect competition, how is are hospital bills one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the US? Shouldnt programmers have made it all efficient and made everything free like in software?