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Comment by midenginedcoupe | Hacker News Reader

Seen from outside the US this is wild. Yet more middlemen to deal with middlemen. And you wonder why US healthcare is so expensive with such relatively poor outcomes.

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I feel it’s predatory to try to make a profit on something that is already so profoundly wrong. Yet this is the kind of company that the YC billionaires want to fund.

It’s predatory to make obscene profits bankrupting people over unavoidable healthcare costs. But YC didn’t create this problem, Private Equity did. YC is just trying solve it with a new business model. Ideally the US govt would solve it, but since they aren’t, a private sector approach is the next best thing.

This isn't trying to solve that problem at all. It's yet another flavour of insurance to add to your existing insurance. Yet another layer of the same guff that exposes ill people to bankrupcy in the first place.

The YC billionaires are part of the same problem and belong to the same class as private equity.

Unless they're investing in PE then that's not necessarily true. There's a difference between creating wealth via innovation and production, vs extracting wealth. I know everyone wants to hate on billionaires these days, but it's worth keeping mind that the ways in people create wealth and make money are not necessarily equivalent. Some are a non-zero-sum game that create extraordinary social good and lift all ships, some are a zero-sum-game that merely extract wealth from others. Let's try not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Billionaires should not exist. They are a net-negative for society and a clear symptom that something it profoundly wrong in society, especially with the insane poverty and homelessness in the USA.

I don't understand your logic. This is addressing a real problem faced by people in America. I think what you're saying is YC billionaires should be fixing everything about our healthcare system instead?

First, other billionaires have tried and failed[0]. Billionaires don't stand a chance against a trillion dollar industry. Second, did you ever consider that a more realistic approach is to start with easily addressible problems like this one rather than trying to boil the ocean.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/04/haven-the-amazon-berkshire-j...

Billionaires haven’t tried at all. They only tried to create a new profit center. They are 100% part of the problem.

The key issue is for-profit healthcare and capitalist methods isn’t going to solve it.

Believe me, things whole thing is wild to someone who worked for one of the big healthcare 'cartel' for a very long time. It's tragic, and it's by design.

And the CMS 9915-F isn't going to fix this problem.

Its not middlemen that is the problem. The service providers have done a complete regulatory capture of the industry.

See the healthcare cartels among the top bribers of all time:

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cy...

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