Let’s start listing the real life experiments that are being carried out during this distressing, disastrous, and in some ways exciting period. I’m not talking about the trials of vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 although those count, too. I’m talking about social, economic, and policy experiments.
We are testing John Maynard Keynes’s theory of government action in a severe economic contraction or, at least the folk variant of that prescription.
We are testing the central proposition of Modern Monetary Theory. Or, again, at least the folk variant of it.
We are testing remote education.
We are testing telemedicine.
We are testing “work from home”, whether offices are really necessary for productivity.
We are testing Americans’ ability to act in a way that is at the least unfamiliar and may even be against their basic natures.
We are testing whether business lockdowns and social distancing with very little else in the way of policy responses can be maintained over an indefinite period and whether they are effective ways of slowing the spread of disease.
And that’s just scratching the surface. I’m pretty pessimistic about all of these experiments.
Why the skepticism of telemedicine? I had a remote consult with my family doctor recently and was very happy with the experience. Achieved everything I would have achieved visiting his office, but saved myself an hour or travel and waiting. I believe he got appropriately compensated. Are you assuming that the willingness of insurers, Medicare et al to pay for telemedicine will go away once this is over?
Telemedicine is adequate in some circumstances, but not in others. IMO, touch, palpated examinations, even personally reading body language is important in diagnostics. Also, face to face, in person relationships offer intangible benefits over a screened presence.
It will be a selective win for telemedicine. Wont work for visits that require a physical exam and older people who are not so tech savvy wont like it as much (older docs for that matter), but for younger tech familiar patients this will be a win. Some docs will resist it but a lot love it already. It is very time efficient. You could schedule an online visit for a 15 minute work break and not have to take a day off to see the doctor. Probably limited success for initial visits for many practices but better for follow ups.
With work from home I expect we will find what I think we already knew. It works sometimes with some people.
Steve
Steve
What we are seeing is our federalist system of governing at work on an overdose of speedball. This goes also for the world’s response to Kung Flu, from China’s total mendacity to Singapore’s attempts at contract tracing to strong in ockdowns many places to Sweden’s light touch approach.
I have a telemedicine appointment next Tuesday. As I am a technophobe who is also really really reluctant to let the Chinese have my data (through Zoom) I am not looking forward to it. I agree fully with Jan and Steve that telemedicine is good for some things (hell, back in the day radio was good enough to teach kids living in the Oz Outback), but nothing can really fully replace a physical doctor visit. Even a slight change in gait or an odd odor can alert a good doctor that something serious is wrong with a patient. Hard to detect those things over a computer screen.
Tele-visits have been a plus for me, but then I’ve been using them for a while now. It’s one thing the VA is doing to provide care for the many people who don’t live close to a VA medical facility. One of our good friends is a psychologist with the VA and she works full-time from home to help vets with PTSD and other issues.
As far as the rest, not much has changed for us. I’ve been working a remote job for three years now, we did remote schooling for our kids for a year (one kids for two years), and we’ve long purchased a lot of stuff online for delivery.
I kind of wonder about the divorce rate long-term. I know a few couples who really have a difficult time being together 24/7.
In China; there was and is a surge of divorces once the lockdowns were lifted.