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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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A big piece of it is admin bloat, just as in academia the number of middle managers and other folks like that (assistant infection control nurse - whose job is to make sure we don't order any labs that may show signs of infection!). Also more general middlemen/industries of various kinds.

Examples: PBMs, billing staff, EMRs.

If you look at a surgery a small fraction of the cost is the surgeons professional fee - yes lots of labor costs but thats because their are literally scores of people involved. Supplies, instruments, equipment....all places where someone could be greedy (see: ortho vendors).

Executives in healthcare are increasingly MBAs or nursing and often have authority over the doctors that can lead to both increased cost and decreased quality (see: travel nursing).

Doctor supply issues may be a problem but they are pretty orthogonal to the overall cost disease problems.