>great, now we can run the same operation with fewer nurses"

And outside of industries with government enforced perversions of simple "supply and demand" forces (we're not talking Nth level effects here) this means more access to the service or lower prices or both.

Edit: Which is to say you won't see any benefit in healthcare but you will in a ton of other industries.

▲

psadauskas 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

During the industrial revolution, people thought that all these new machines and factories and electricity meant that everyone would only have to work 4 hours a week since it made everyone so much more productive.

That's not what happened, though. Everyone worked the same amount for the same pay, just in more miserable repetitive working conditions, while the factory owners kept all profits from the gains in productivity.

▲

leonidasrup 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

" The central argument of Capital is that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value and profit. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

	▲	AuthAuth 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Marx's labour theory of value is only a theory of where profits come from and is largely rejected. Return on captial investment is not restricted to factory owners. All workers get a share of the surplus value and have the option to increase that by investing.

▲

d3dd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"while the factory owners kept all profits from the gains in productivity."

Because this is what drives continual risk-capital.. very few countries are willing to upset this. Get over it man - I hate hardended capitalists but stop crying. This is the system we have. Wanna beat it? Go ahead and start a firm. Then you'll find out how tough it is.

The thing I cant get over is enough software engineering folks collectively hold immense power. Whats wrong with you lot (im not a software engineer)? Get your sht together.

P.s. Im starting a firm who's central mission is to attack capitalists (ofc I won't say it out loud in that way). I will find out for myself how much of a backbone software engineers etc have when I employ them.

▲

lbreakjai 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In a market with perfect competition, perhaps. Healthcare is far closer to a monopoly. Since people can't decide not to be sick, it means you can pocket the cost-saving.

▲

dgellow 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Healthcare is indeed the poster child for inelastic demand

▲

cucumber3732842 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>it means you can pocket the cost-saving

Right up until a competing hospital that charges substantially less for "close enough it doesn't matter" quality of service opens up in the same area?

Or right up until an equivalent specialist sets up shop in the strip mall across the street from you, brings the GP in house and can see people in one visit.

Oh, those things don't happen you say?

From do-gooders regulating right into the hands of waiting industry lobbyists to inelastic demand healthcare is an absolute poster child for perversion of the free market.

High finance will put solar panels on your roof and structure it so you pay nothing. The degree to which administrative overhead is washed away by technology would have been unfathomable in 1990.

A sketchy concrete crew that doesn't even speak english will show up wearing matching company attire and execute a job planned and timed to a degree of precision that was reserved for huge corporations 40yr ago.

Yet healthcare has resisted all of the advances of the past 40yr. In fact we pay more for it. Every advancement is absorbed by the system.

Why is that?

	▲	slopinthebag 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		healthcare is one of the most highly regulated and state-controlled industries on the planet. surely that has nothing to do with it though. must be those damn capitalists!

▲

jplusequalt 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>And outside of industries with government enforced perversions of simple "supply and demand" forces (we're not talking Nth level effects here) this means more access to the service or lower prices or both.

Greater access at the expense of the number of people employed is not necessarily a net positive. In the case of healthcare, the data is fairly clear that higher nurse staffing ratios lead to better patient outcomes (read: decreased chance of death or serious complications). This is particularly true for ED and ICU nurses.

Also, in the case of healthcare, I'm fairly certain that hospitals in the US are legally not allowed to turn patients away. So "lack of access" is not currently a problem for serious medical emergencies.