Jaan Sidorov hosted a great post-inaugural Health Wonk Review last week at the Disease Management Care Blog. Head over there and check out the great articles – along with the virtual concert that accompanies the HWR.
One article that caught my eye was written by Roy Poses of the Health Care Renewal Blog. Roy writes about a biotech company worth $27 million that paid its CEO $1million last year. And in the same year, the company’s stock dropped 99.25%. Wow. As Roy mentioned, “you just can’t make this stuff up”.
Healthcare is a somewhat unique industry. In the US, a large chunk of it is privately run, although calling it a free market system requires a somewhat warped view of basic economics. Unlike just about every other private industry, healthcare is a necessity. It’s an immediate necessity for people who are currently ill (my father would be dead in a matter of weeks without dialysis), and an assumed future necessity for pretty much everybody else (it’s a rare soul who lives to be 100 without ever needing medical attention, and then dies peacefully in her sleep). With other private industries, we have more of a choice in terms of quality, price, and whether we want the product in the first place.