How bad do you think our for profit health care industry will mess up a pandemic?

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Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
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I posed the question. Do you think healthcare as an industry system will work well in a pandemic?

What happens will depend on particulars of any infection. All systems have finite resources and if an outbreak is severe and extensive it can break every single one. My concern is government at this time as Mike Pence will be leading the charge against this. These people can screw up dirt.

Pick a nation, any you like, and start throwing bodies at it like they were bullets from a machine gun and things will turn to shit.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
What happens will depend on particulars of any infection. All systems have finite resources and if an outbreak is severe and extensive it can break every single one. My concern is government at this time as Mike Pence will be leading the charge against this. These people can screw up dirt.

Pick a nation, any you like, and start throwing bodies at it like they were bullets from a machine gun and things will turn to shit.

Sure. But would a for profit system fail before a care for all system in this situation.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,512
29,099
146
Only 3 states (perhaps 4 now?) have the resources to even administer a Coronavirus test. Nebraska is one of them for some reason.

Oh, and as demonstrated in that other thread, be prepared to shell out $1500 for the test if you have shitty insurance.

I don't understand why it's a $1500 test ...OK, actually I do. insurance goblins. From what I understand, they just do a simple blood screen with PCR. ....this is what it costs me to run a single PCR reaction:

DNA extraction kit (blood)--column kit or homebrew/generic reagent kit: ~$5-50 per sample,
depending on bulk (one would presume you are making shitloads of reactions, so you'd have larger sample kits, thus very cheap individually
PCR primers: roughly $6-8 each (so up to $16/pair) ordered from IDT or Genewiz or Eurofins.
....you don't order their primers. You copy past the oligo sequences from published data and custom order them yourselves. super effective. This cost would probably cover ~thousand samples. ...so pennies per individual.
PCR reactions: kits reagents will cost ~$10 per sample, probably cheaper.
Then it's just time on your thermocycler. baked-in facility cost for these people, so none of these machines have any kind of running cost to them. They are simple, relatively cheap, and don't require regular, expensive maintenance.
(I wouldn't be surprised if they are running qPCR with labeled tags, though, so these costs can be a bit more expensive, but maybe by a factor of 1.5--though you don't need to run gels or anything, so you'd save lots of time and money doing it that way...so maybe break even?)

All in all, from blood collection to extraction to PCR and results, it takes about 4 hours total time to process everything. probably no more than $15/sample, if being very generous with cost. Facilities that are processing bulk samples, which they probably are, it probably costs close to a dollar per sample for these, all-in.
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
Sure. But would a for profit system fail before a care for all system in this situation.

The system is irrelevant. It comes down to the number infected vs resources available. If a private system has greater resources it will do better. If not it won't. There isn't a "gotcha" answer to be here because there are too many variables.

What we should have are adequate provisions given and yes that means government planning and execution. In this country that will be provided for by Mike Pence.

That should really help things /s
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
it seems china had incredible health care resources available. Do you think our private health care could match that?
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
The system is irrelevant. It comes down to the number infected vs resources available. If a private system has greater resources it will do better. If not it won't. There isn't a "gotcha" answer to be here because there are too many variables.

What we should have are adequate provisions given and yes that means government planning and execution. In this country that will be provided for by Mike Pence.

That should really help things /s

Puh-leeze! There is no plan for pandemics in small gubmint Trumplandia. And if there was a plan, they threw it away.
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
it seems china had incredible health care resources available. Do you think our private health care could match that?

I don't know what China actually has in terms of resources and really few in the West do. I also don't know the number infected nor being treated. All I know is what China puts out which is as politically motivated.

So how many infected will there be (we need to know this) what will be the transmission rates along with mortality and morbidity of the infection (we need to know that too). If the US or China or France faces a worst case scenario, then everyone living there is pretty screwed. If it's the very best case then we're OK.

The problem is that this is entirely unknown. If I were to make predictions they would be freely unencumbered by data, which is sort of a joke among the research community when conclusions are drawn without sufficient demonstrated cause.
 

snoopy7548

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2005
8,048
5,043
146
I don't understand why it's a $1500 test ...OK, actually I do. insurance goblins. From what I understand, they just do a simple blood screen with PCR. ....this is what it costs me to run a single PCR reaction:

DNA extraction kit (blood)--column kit or homebrew/generic reagent kit: ~$5-50 per sample,
depending on bulk (one would presume you are making shitloads of reactions, so you'd have larger sample kits, thus very cheap individually
PCR primers: roughly $6-8 each (so up to $16/pair) ordered from IDT or Genewiz or Eurofins.
....you don't order their primers. You copy past the oligo sequences from published data and custom order them yourselves. super effective. This cost would probably cover ~thousand samples. ...so pennies per individual.
PCR reactions: kits reagents will cost ~$10 per sample, probably cheaper.
Then it's just time on your thermocycler. baked-in facility cost for these people, so none of these machines have any kind of running cost to them. They are simple, relatively cheap, and don't require regular, expensive maintenance.
(I wouldn't be surprised if they are running qPCR with labeled tags, though, so these costs can be a bit more expensive, but maybe by a factor of 1.5--though you don't need to run gels or anything, so you'd save lots of time and money doing it that way...so maybe break even?)

All in all, from blood collection to extraction to PCR and results, it takes about 4 hours total time to process everything. probably no more than $15/sample, if being very generous with cost. Facilities that are processing bulk samples, which they probably are, it probably costs close to a dollar per sample for these, all-in.

$1500 is a lot of money. I mean, you can buy a perfectly good, fully functional car for that much! :p
 
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Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
I don't understand why it's a $1500 test ...OK, actually I do. insurance goblins. From what I understand, they just do a simple blood screen with PCR. ....this is what it costs me to run a single PCR reaction:

DNA extraction kit (blood)--column kit or homebrew/generic reagent kit: ~$5-50 per sample,
depending on bulk (one would presume you are making shitloads of reactions, so you'd have larger sample kits, thus very cheap individually
PCR primers: roughly $6-8 each (so up to $16/pair) ordered from IDT or Genewiz or Eurofins.
....you don't order their primers. You copy past the oligo sequences from published data and custom order them yourselves. super effective. This cost would probably cover ~thousand samples. ...so pennies per individual.
PCR reactions: kits reagents will cost ~$10 per sample, probably cheaper.
Then it's just time on your thermocycler. baked-in facility cost for these people, so none of these machines have any kind of running cost to them. They are simple, relatively cheap, and don't require regular, expensive maintenance.
(I wouldn't be surprised if they are running qPCR with labeled tags, though, so these costs can be a bit more expensive, but maybe by a factor of 1.5--though you don't need to run gels or anything, so you'd save lots of time and money doing it that way...so maybe break even?)

All in all, from blood collection to extraction to PCR and results, it takes about 4 hours total time to process everything. probably no more than $15/sample, if being very generous with cost. Facilities that are processing bulk samples, which they probably are, it probably costs close to a dollar per sample for these, all-in.
You seem like the guy to ask. PCR is cheap and no doubt $1500 a test is way more than cost, but what about determining this specific virus? Figure two tests per patient.

This is the sort of thing which should be government funded as it would be cheaper to hire qualified individuals and purchase equipment for the CDC, NIH or whomever.
 

dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,572
3,401
136
You people act like you don't even want to die in agony from total pulmonary failure. Is that too high of a price for freedom (of big pharma to reach their quarterly earnings forecast)?
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
You people act like you don't even want to die in agony from total pulmonary failure. Is that too high of a price for freedom (of big pharma to reach their quarterly earnings forecast)?

I want better. I don't want the cluster which is Italy.

As far as Big Pharma, I had the fix for that years and years ago, but it was killed after Bush.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,512
29,099
146
You seem like the guy to ask. PCR is cheap and no doubt $1500 a test is way more than cost, but what about determining this specific virus? Figure two tests per patient.

This is the sort of thing which should be government funded as it would be cheaper to hire qualified individuals and purchase equipment for the CDC, NIH or whomever.

I think one of the primary issues is properly screening CoVID-19 or whatever it's called, and the various other coronaviruses out there that are as abundant as herpes. There are a lot of false positives, if you use general coronavirus primers that capture a common marker between all of them. ...I think this lead to some early false diagnoses (in both directions?).

...I would think that the most rigor you need for this would be two reactions/patient: a negative, "coronavirus" primer pair control and a covid-19 specific pair.

NIH, CDC, and the various private primer design/sanger sequencing/next gen seq vendors out there have more than enough machine resources to handle sampling for the entire country, rather effectively, if dedicated to it. You can process up to 382 samples at once on a single plate/thermocycler block.

This kind of stuff isn't as commonly used anymore, so there should be a ton of underutliized equipment out there that could easily be put in service to do some bulk processing. There are a couple of NextGen seq startup companies out there that utilize a "airplane seat selling" model for fulfilling sequencing contracts for their customers. ...they basically buy time on underutilized machines that are "trapped" in relatively obsolete tech, from various companies, and write contracts to their customers, basing price on their needs vs the available timeline for when they can access the machines. ....sort of an "app based" sequencing company that rents resources that they don't own for their customers.
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
Not to worry, Saks says the virus could cost the President the election. I predict the President responding to this prediction.


they basically said " the gig is up yall. Everyone will see how much of a retard we put in office"
 
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Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
11,567
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Suddenly everyone wants to be in an authoritarian system. Just wait, you will be. Either several authoritarian measures will be implemented or you can kiss the whole system goodbye. Someone is going to have to care for the severely ill, someone is going to have to keep the utilities running when quarantines kick in, someone is going to have to deliver and distribute food. I believe the odds of all the right people volunteering to do this being at about zero. Oh and all this will have to be free since most people cannot save money. Here soon I think many people are going to be looking longingly at China's methods for the last month.

Hopefully I am wrong and everyone can laugh at me, I'll happily take it.

As far as the health care industry fucking up? They already have to an extent by not being prepared. Just like Canada and everyone else that have not used the last month to get ready. I understand that is because preparing costs money and no one is paying but I put that part on the governments, all of them.
The natural steady-state is that of political domination and capitalism as the funding machine. The pseudo-intellectuals in political discourse and their retarded false dichotomy can have their books burned as reality is showing that political totalitarianism is perfectly compatible with a "capitalism with conditions".
 

ShookKnight

Senior member
Dec 12, 2019
646
658
96
First and foremost, they won't do jack shit about it. They will let people die, just to save $3.

Then, they will go crying to the government how they need money / bail out to help them out.