alt Hacker News> but then the added productivity is used to justify fewer on-staff nurses
Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients. If the goal of a healthcare system is to make healthcare more accessible (rather than be a jobs program), that's a success.
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If, and that's a huge if, the savings are actually passed on to the customers rather than the capital owners.
Lowering prices or raising wages due to increased productivity is not a given, and often does not follow. There is more to pocket by shareholders though.
> makes medical care cheaper for patients
I think you misspelled “increases profit margins for hospitals” if you’re talking about US healthcare.
> Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients.
yeah yeah, sure sure
> Lower staffing levels per unit of care performed makes medical care cheaper for patients.
Based on how neoliberal capitalism tends to work it will simply lead to more profits for hospitals etc.
Everything is theoretically cheaper for the patients/customer/stakeholders if you just didn't employ anyone at all to do whatever it is you are doing.
The thing is, your customers are paying customers because, drum roll, some one pays them to do something.
And of course the only argument against this is "uhh maybe ubi" and that's rich that we will just come up with a nice tidy sum for everyone that will cover all their food, healthcare, housing, wants and needs, while we can't create programs to cover any one of those things today. Can't wait to see the GOP proposal.