How many patients can one doctor take care of per year? How many people can one farmer feed a year? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by LesserAbe@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Was just thinking that there should be doctor clubs, where a bunch of people pool their money to hire a dedicated general physician. Or to have a shared tailor, or group cafeteria, or whatever.

The ratio of people covered to specialists would probably determine whether it's feasible. You'd want the specialist to still get paid a healthy (and guaranteed) salary and to have a more satisfying relationship with customers. And the members of the club to get better service / product than they would otherwise with middlemen taking a cut.

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[-] Khanzarate@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

The logic is sound, but as you extend the idea, the group starts selling access to their doctor, and you basically pay a subscription for a doctor, and then you just have insurance by another name. It wouldn't be corrupt like modern insurance, but that's just because it's new, not because it won't get there, unless specific steps are taken to prevent that.

Really, the only thing thatt actually accomplishes here is you've removed profit and CEO nonsense from the equation. A community that implemented and organized all these potential communal services would just be a commune. Nothing wrong with that at all, we need more communist principles in our lives.

[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I think if it started to get bigger the other factor that would come into play is the entity could be democratically controlled, which is another thing we don't get with typical insurance.

[-] Khanzarate@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, definitely some benefits to it, even without extending it to communism. The usual term for these is an insurance cooperative, if you wanna research them more. A lot of unions do this, too.

this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023

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