The situation is pretty clear: the doctor wants more money, your friend does not want to give him more money for an unnecessary visit, but is also not willing to sacrifice his time or his money or both to knuckle under and get the life-saving medicine that should not even require a prescription renewal in a reasonable healthcare setup.
This was a contest of wills, your friend found some blackmailing ammo (a threat to post on social media), and he won the game of chicken. If the doctor had the nerve and refused, your friend would have somehow found the time to come in the next day, to this doctor or some other, and, depending on his mood that day, made good on his threat or not. We don’t know.
One thing is clear though: it was not about life and death, it was about time and money.
In a game where some actors are humans, we should expect the highest stakes at play to sometimes be lost. Or do you think that nuclear war is impossible these days?
I believe he’s pointing out that yes, this is about time and money, but the limits of the game include life and death. Death will sometimes result from this money-centric behavior.
I don’t think that’s particularly surprising nor outrageous, but I’m a bit more cynical and semi-malthusian than many seem to be. There are BILLIONS (and growing!) of humans with near-infinite wants. There is a finite (also growing, possibly even faster than population, but still more limited than the wants of humans). Some are going to travel internationally and eat fine meals, and to do so they will find ways to get paid for providing unnecessary “services”, like writing a trivially-obvious prescription.
The system is such that a few people will die because they fail to jump through the hoops set up to ensure payment to the power-holders.
The battle over time and money (patient value for their time) (doc value for money) was more central to the discussion than life and death. Bringing in the subjective life and death claims helps to elevate the stakes of the discussion, but this “signalling game” was all about the time and the money, not the life and death as claimed by the report.
We can pretend it was about life and death but the ticking clock was still very long. I could think of it as a “runway”. Yes at the end of the runway if the patient did nothing they could die in a week. On the other hand they have access to money and plenty of options. Lots of start ups run with 6 months of runway and crash, instagram had huge success in a very short time.
The fake runway here has death at the end, before that point includes, “the patient spends exorbitant money” making the runway longer.
The situation is pretty clear: the doctor wants more money, your friend does not want to give him more money for an unnecessary visit, but is also not willing to sacrifice his time or his money or both to knuckle under and get the life-saving medicine that should not even require a prescription renewal in a reasonable healthcare setup.
This was a contest of wills, your friend found some blackmailing ammo (a threat to post on social media), and he won the game of chicken. If the doctor had the nerve and refused, your friend would have somehow found the time to come in the next day, to this doctor or some other, and, depending on his mood that day, made good on his threat or not. We don’t know.
One thing is clear though: it was not about life and death, it was about time and money.
In a game where some actors are humans, we should expect the highest stakes at play to sometimes be lost. Or do you think that nuclear war is impossible these days?
Seems like you are making an important point, but I am not sure I get it. Mind clarifying?
I believe he’s pointing out that yes, this is about time and money, but the limits of the game include life and death. Death will sometimes result from this money-centric behavior.
I don’t think that’s particularly surprising nor outrageous, but I’m a bit more cynical and semi-malthusian than many seem to be. There are BILLIONS (and growing!) of humans with near-infinite wants. There is a finite (also growing, possibly even faster than population, but still more limited than the wants of humans). Some are going to travel internationally and eat fine meals, and to do so they will find ways to get paid for providing unnecessary “services”, like writing a trivially-obvious prescription.
The system is such that a few people will die because they fail to jump through the hoops set up to ensure payment to the power-holders.
The battle over time and money (patient value for their time) (doc value for money) was more central to the discussion than life and death. Bringing in the subjective life and death claims helps to elevate the stakes of the discussion, but this “signalling game” was all about the time and the money, not the life and death as claimed by the report.
We can pretend it was about life and death but the ticking clock was still very long. I could think of it as a “runway”. Yes at the end of the runway if the patient did nothing they could die in a week. On the other hand they have access to money and plenty of options. Lots of start ups run with 6 months of runway and crash, instagram had huge success in a very short time.
The fake runway here has death at the end, before that point includes, “the patient spends exorbitant money” making the runway longer.