This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss the healthcare system, outrageous demands from PR flacks, and living on Elon's Internet.
EMANUEL: Everyone has a story about a terrible experience they’ve had with the healthcare system, and I know this because every time we write a story about the subject people comment and write in to tell us these stories.
This week, we heard a lot of stories from people who have a hard time getting their meds after we published a story about MedFinder, a service from a company called Insito Health, which will outsource the task of calling pharmacies to try and get your medication to cheap labor in the Philippines. After sharing their stories, people’s response to the service itself is some version of “wow, this is really dystopian and sad that it exists, but I’ll consider using it next time I’m in that situation.”
At least one commenter was mad that I covered the story at all because it read like an “ad,” according to them. I totally understand that point of view and admit that after speaking to the founders, I did not get the impression that they are bad people, and I didn’t see the company doing anything I’d define as nefarious, really (if you know otherwise, please let me know). Obviously, that doesn’t mean that it’s “good.” It’s a result of an extremely bad system and one that people are willing to pay for out of desperation, even knowing that it could create more stratification in health care, in this case between people who can afford MedFinder and those who can’t.