Let’s do a thought experiment: Consider you are in 2045. The anti-ageing market is a multi-billion-dollar global market and most mid-fifty+ are purchasing pills with the chemical molecules of - Rapamycin, Metformin, Resveratrol, NAD boosters etc. Consumption of these pills is similar to eating food. This leads creation of Pharmacy brands, Insurance companies, Professional and Facilities networks etc. It is so ingrained in societies that people are taking loans to fulfil this want to stay young biologically and that created another hundred billion dollar landing industry. The capitalist ecosystem those who control the anti-aging market are publishing impact reports - the number of years added by humans on this planet due to anti-ageing pills and further value created by those humans, prevention of suffering, pain etc
Among all these market creations and limelight, that elite capitalist ecosystem prevented the key information: the fundamental properties of these anti-ageing molecules merely mimic the benefits of low-calorie diets (Calorie restriction) and exercise to extend lifespan. to extend the lifespan. This means there was no need for this trillion-dollar industry creation if the fundamental information could have been shared with the individual early. But historically, this has been the story, we have been creating a new problem to solve an old problem creating a vicious cycle of price inflation. USA’s current Healthcare per capita is a good example of creating wrong value and inflating the overall cost.
Coming back to the present, recently, I corrected myself on the definition of Health Insurance - earlier it used to be: a tool for certain prevention of uncertain health (financial) risk However, to understand the new definition, we need to understand the value creation by each stakeholder.
Let’s list out all the stakeholders of Health Insurance
- Healthcare Providers (Health facilities, Health Professionals)
- Diagnosis labs
- Pharmacies Brands
- Healthtech companies
- EMR/EHR Software
- Patients
Now, if we look at the above stakeholders from a value creation POV there are massive conflicts between Patients’ values and the rest of the stakeholders’ values.
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Hospitals (Healthcare Providers) create value by keeping patients longer in hospitals. This means there is an incentive to keep the patients longer even if there is no need.
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Pharmacies create value by pushing the consumption of medicines longer through healthcare professionals or Healthcare facilities.
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EHR Platform create value by blocking and creating a bottleneck and charging for future uncertain utilizations
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Healthtech companies charge for the prescription of individual lifestyles and create new problems by fixing the existing problems.
The Patient has a single value - IMPROVEMENT of Patient’s Outcomes.
You see there is a direct conflict between the values for patients and the values for the rest of the stakeholders. And when there are conflicts of incentives/value between two parties - it becomes a zero-sum game. This is one of the root causes of skyrocketing Healthcare per capita in developed and developing countries without significant improvement in quality.
Solving the above problem might be impossible for a developed country because they have existing legacy infrastructure, regulators, dependency, billions of dollars of investments etc. - it would be almost impossible to bring that Healthcare per capita down. However, countries such as India whose Healthcare infrastructure (Digital and Physical) is in development can avoid letting the Healthcare per capita go out of reach. That can only be possible if tech companies start participating from the inside by making sure the value for patients is in the centre and the rest of the stakeholders are aligned towards enhancing patients’ value - IMPROVING Patient Outcomes.
So, this is up to us to decide!
This is a small portion of my recent essay: You can read it here 