CDC's top laboratory on STDs is shut by Trump administration

I've had to use the CDC lab to figure out a drug-resistant Trichomonas infection. Lots of very skilled people at that facility and this is a bad one to lose; it was the only lab that did those sorts of tests. There's not enough money in it for commercial labs.

How is there not enough money in it? Do only poor people get these sorts of issues? Serious question, no shade on poor people.

The article mentions something about resistant strains; that's going to be low volume, so high upfront investments for a one time result. In theory, I'm not an expert.

But this is the problem with capitalism and health care, the providers just stop if there's not enough money in it for them.

> But this is the problem with capitalism and health care, the providers just stop if there's not enough money in it for them.

Is this supposed to be a flaw?

If the cost of a lab is $500/patient then the patient (or their insurance) pays the $500 and the lab exists. If the cost of the lab is $50,000,000/patient, the lab probably shouldn't be funded, because its cost/benefit ratio is very bad and the same money could have saved more lives by putting it somewhere else.

What would you do in the alternative? Have the government provide unlimited funding for things that cost more than they're worth?

STDs spread. It's not just the one patient who benefits, is it? Fantasize about people not spreading STDs all you want, it came from somewhere and can go further. Public health isn't just the one person.

> STDs spread. It's not just the one patient who benefits, is it?

You're making the case that the market would have the incentive to provide these things because the insurance company would rather pay for an expensive test than have a larger number of claims if the disease spreads.

People would rather stick their heads in the sand on average. Insurance companies would be spending on cheaper preventions for all kinds of things instead of expensive cures if they operated like you describe. They'd be ripping a new one in the meat industry to forestall antibiotic resistance, for example.

> Insurance companies would be spending on cheaper preventions for all kinds of things instead of expensive cures if they operated like you describe.

The existing law has a massive defect that prevents any of that sort of thing from happening right now.

We capped insurance company profits as a percentage of claims, so the only way they can make more money is by paying out more and bigger claims. We basically banned them from having any incentive to lower costs because now lower costs mean lower profits instead of higher ones.

But that's a flaw in the existing system, not a flaw in the general concept.

> They'd be ripping a new one in the meat industry to forestall antibiotic resistance, for example.

There are already various state and federal laws restricting the use of antibiotics in livestock. But in general what leverage does an insurance company have over the meat industry?