The Coming Intersection of Health Care and the New Financial Industry?

The financial industry knew what it was doing when it capitalized on mortgage failure. By culling out predictably  failing mortgages, selling them to their witless customers, and then betting against those very same customers, the financial industry demonstrated mastery of the complexities of  double-crossing the people who were dumb enough to believe that the guys in the sharp pinstriped suits really intended to honor the fiduciary obligation that their relationship inferred.

Now that their "failing mortgage"game has been exposed  the financial people are going to have to find another way to sucker the dim-witted trusting public. And health care- particularly "failing health" -  may be just the ticket.

Like mortgage insurers, certain health insurers may be ripe for the picking.  As they acquire sicker and sicker populations under health care reform, and their profit and loss statements turn to negative and balance sheets show lots of red ink, savvy financial people can sell those insurers' stock short and then, when the sick population starts to die off, repurchase the now- bargain stock at  rock bottom prices, assuming that the now healthy list of subscribers will pay premiums but not use expensive services.  High-cost high-quality hospitals, which will not be fully reimbursed by insurers or the government, will be ripe for well-heeled financial people's picking; and just as was done in other industries, hospitals' assets including land, high-tech equipment and other items can be resold at an unbundled profit. Interesting acquisition targets will be health care organizations that don't take care of very sick people and have lots of physicians and other personnel who can process a great many people without being distracted by serious illness such as cancer, heart disease, expensive genetic disorders and hard-to-treat mental illnesses.

Investments in pharmaceutical companies will favor those which don't spend much on research, but do generate steady profits from selling drugs for chronic conditions which allow people to have long uncomfortable lives. Financial people will have no interest in antibiotics for an outbreak of the next plague; they want drugs that will keep you taking pills from the company they invest in for the rest of your miserable life. No cure; just steady income is what brings smiles financial peoples' faces.


Perhaps some financial people will take out advertisements to attract patients to insurers, hospitals, health systems and providers whom they want to drive into insolvency as they invest in insurers, hospitals, health systems and providers who provide little care, but generate substantial profits for their financial investors. So some night, when you are watching TV pitchmen at 2 AM, they won't be selling you knives or frying pans, they'll be selling you failing health that brings profits to their advertisers.

Limitless opportunities will be there for those aggressive enough to invest in failing health. And then there's the funeral industry . . . .