Saturday, January 30, 2021

Should the governments control private organizations on COVID vaccination

 I just received an email from Kaiser Permanente CEO

1. "We, like the state, are not permitted to purchase more vaccines directly from the manufacturer."

2. "At Kaiser Permanente, we care for more than 9.3 million Californians — "

3. "We’re currently receiving a total of approximately 40,000 vaccine doses per week in California."


When I see the above and find effectively Kaiser is going free for taking my insurance premium and still not providing me the life saving vaccine in time, hiding behind government order. Should it be? Kaiser was paid by me for my medical insurance, not by government. Why should it say Government did this and that as a reason why it is not providing necessary care to me? Israel could provide vaccinations to so many of its citizen, why should I agree Kaiser cannot?


Secondly I see Government is doing an incredible job in providing vaccines to citizens. But should it limit the ability of private organizations in adding to this effort? Who gets benefitted with such constraints and inability to optimize because of the constraints? Say Kaiser finds that its customer's probability of 

  1. avoiding getting Covid 
  2. and it spending $30K in hospital admissions
decreases from 2% to 1% if Vaccine is provided 2 months in advance. Then 1% of 30K is $300. If the cost of vaccine 2 month ahead costs $100 more, Kaiser should be allowed to spend its money and provide vaccine in time to its customer and make it 
  1. win-win for its customer and itself 
  2. and save lives
  3. and add to the herd immunity by making more vaccinated
  4. and add its own resources towards national immunization target 
Who gets benefitted by taking away the ability of private healthcare providers to procure and provide vaccines?

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