I understand your view, but I think it’s wrong. While the delivery of healthcare services does comprise some 14-15% of our economy, I contend the practice of medicine is not and must not be construed as an industry. That is one reason we’ve got to the point we have with Obamacare. Health care services are not like other industrial services in that they are - ideally - personalized and compassionate.
Medicine, despite what the tinkerers think, is as much art, maybe more, than it is pure science. There is no cookbook, although some would like it that way. It’s just that for most patients, outcomes are unpredictable.
They don’t call it a practice, for nothing.
“Medicine, despite what the tinkerers think, is as much art, maybe more, than it is pure science. There is no cookbook, although some would like it that way. It’s just that for most patients, outcomes are unpredictable.”
A large fraction of medicine is of the lookup table variety, match symptoms to pills, collect the fees direct the patients to your labs, have a nice day.
The Art of Medicine is only the domain of a select talented subset of physicians and surgeons.
We can agree to that much, I think. Nonetheless - they have to have the technology, the manufacturing, the pharmaceuticals the brick-and-mortar facilities behind them.
It is every much an industry as anything else is in this day and age. Deploy capital, serve your market, collect revenues, grow market share etc.