On a similar note, I run a popular (and probably the best) personal finance website on the internet.
I use data and math to find the most optimal ways to eat, buy health insurance, etc... And everything is free.
I make trivial amounts of money by donations.
I've seen my competitors are significantly worse quality, downright Dave Ramsey Snowball effect tier bad advice. But they sell advertising space for snake oil, they sell yet another budgeting spreadsheet, books, courses, and more.
Their marketing is pretty interesting "I'm a bad girl that likes fashion, so I invest and save." Or something to give them personality. They claim to make 30k+/yr. But they don't get the traffic and I'm sure they haven't been on BBC.
I'm happy with the thank you emails I get, my day job pays well.
It's just another example of lower quality, but charging money making bigger profits.
Twitter is unusable if you want to avoid Politics. I unfriended almost everyone but all it takes is a single Like from anyone and it's Politics galore.
Mods have deleted this question with no reasoning- Why is the "science" solution to lockdown? This is a prioritization of a minority population at the expense of an overwhelming majority.
Logic would say to prioritize (pick your numbers, I don't care) the 99.5% over the 0.5%.
My hypothesis is that since it's a healthcare issue, the leaders are less math/statistics inclined and more focused on biology.
You can only help 40 people per week without cutting down on the care. Another benefit for private pay is that you don't have to spend time on insurances or calling physicians for a prescription.
I talk a big game about raising prices but I know my wife has done free services for disabled children. She's a sucker, and we claim it's advertising/marketing.
Hospitals and big name clinics would never do this.
There seems to be a lot to unpack, so sorry if this is jumping around but I tried to provide lots of details.
My wife has worked at those places and the difference in patient outcomes is night and day. Sure some people will get better regardless, but there's something special about people saying a 3 year old injury has 0/10 pain. At a big name company, they get people "good enough".
She's one of those people that would prefer to be a Physical Therapist rather than a business owner.
As a side note, many of her patients came from that 60$/hr insurance because most places don't accept it. It seems like it's a stepping stone. Knowing her, they will be grandfathered in.
Something I didn't mention is how often she does free work/eat the cost because insurance will deny payment for services that were approved but later deemed "not necessary". (Despite the person being unable to work) It's complicated because a phone call, or Physician, or patient can sometimes fix this.
Side note on billing. My wife's practice is finally hitting it's celing. She needs to either charge more or hire more doctors + get a bigger space.
She is her brand, so we probably won't get more doctors. But we have slowly raised prices from 50$ to 75$ per hour.
Next we are going to stop accepting some government health insurance because they only pay $60/hr. Long term I can see 125$-200$/hr private pay only.
The alternative to her 1 on 1 care is a hospital/clinic where you get 37 minute visits shared with multiple other clients, and have a new doctor every few weeks due to high turnover.