American Marketing at Its Very Best!
I just ran across the smartest marketing move that I've seen in a long time. It's a perfect example of why the U.S. healthcare system is the absolute best in the entire world!
Here's the story. A company that does DNA testing for bone marrow transplants, a test that normally costs $100, figured out a way to make big money.
The company sent out a bunch of "figure models" wearing f-me pumps, mini-skirts, and short lab coats. The "models" were instructed to accost young men, act all flirty, and then challenge them to be tested to be a bone marrow donor (e.g. "why not be a hero?").
The "model" would then take a swab from the inside of the guy's mouth, along with his insurance information, and the insurance company would then get billed $4,000 for the DNA testing.
If you estimate that a typical "model" is going to cost $300 an hour, and can hook maybe 7 guys an hour, that's an hourly profit, per model, of $27,000 per hour. Multiply that times, say, a hundred models, and you've got a nice little business model that produces $108 million in profit every week.
The best part, of course, is that the cost of those tests aren't really paid by the insurance companies. Instead, they just pass them along to the consumer in the form of higher premiums.
Now, THAT's American marketing at its very best -- using the false promise of sexual favors to sell a substandard product at a premium price to clueless consumers. Yay!
This story got on my radar screen partly because it played out in my local area, but also because on Friday, I posted five predictions for the coming year, one of which pointed out that the only changes to the healthcare system that will ever be legislated will be those that increase the profitability of the healthcare industry.
Now, every time I point out that kind of painfully obvious truth, somebody gets the insane idea that I'm against for-profit healthcare.
But that's ridiculous. I'm absolutely in awe of the effectiveness of the U.S. healthcare industry, which is successfully managing to capture an increasing amount of the country's wealth and wallet share, while simultaneously raking in massive profits. (See "Healthcare: A Sales Success Story.")
That's the essence of capitalism and therefore a Very Good Thing.
Of course, there ARE idiots out there who think that maybe healthcare might have a more positive impact on society as a whole if it weren't run as a for-profit business. But that's nonsense. If healthcare were non-profit, the industry wouldn't be incentivized to generate great marketing ideas like sending out busty babes to drum up business.
And that would be crazy! The obvious choice is to maintain the status quo in all its free-market glory. I say: fleece the insured for all they're worth and the devil take the hindmost! As for the uninsured, a very wise man once said (about this time of year, in fact): "Let them die and decrease the excess population."
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