VCs Duel On Healthcare Reform
Here's Harry Rein from Foundation Medical Partners telling Maria Bartiromo on CNBC today how innovation in the new healthcare reform bills has "hit the cutting room floor." "They're focused on access and reductions in cost...(but) you don't get to lower costs without innovation. It IS the solution," Rein said. Al Waxman of the Psilos Group has a very different view. Healthcare innovation does not always lower costs, he found -- sometimes it makes costs go up. Waxman discovered this first-hand in the 1970s, when he invented an ultrasound device that he thought would lower healthcare costs by eliminating unnecessary surgeries. But it didn't. It raised costs because doctors used the device to do unnecessary procedures to lower their chances of getting sued.
