Last week I was certain this column was going to pass along a sure-fire way for all of us to get rich. Why? Rumor on the street (Wall Street that is) had Abbott Laboratories acquiring Beckman Coulter at $100 a share. At the time, Beckman’s stock was trading at about $77. Buy at $77, sell at $100, and we all get rich, right?
Wrong.
Before I even had the chance to think about which credit card balance to pay off first, Beckman announced a two-for-one stock split that sounded the death knell for an Abbott acquisition and my only chance at an all-cash Christmas. The silver lining for me, of course, is that covering a clinical diagnostics industry with five behemoths is at least 20 percent more interesting than covering one with just four industry behemoths. The silver lining for laboratorians is that more choices are better than fewer.
Consolidation certainly has proven effective in wringing excess costs from healthcare, but there must be a point where large crosses the line from efficient to bureaucratic. Otherwise, why aren’t people clamoring for national health insurance and big government?
Speaking of government, the registered voters among us are choosing a new President this month, and since many of us have been weighed down with serious issues, watching debates and evaluating candidates, I thought a joke was in order. This is a twist on one that was e-mailed to me recently by a Chicago friend who also works in healthcare.
Two laboratorians and an HMO manager died and lined up at the pearly gates for admission to heaven. St. Peter asked them about themselves. One laboratorian stepped forward and said, “I was a pathologist who helped save women’s lives through early diagnosis of cervical cancer.” St. Peter said, “You can enter.” The second laboratorian said, “I was a medical technologist who made sure that all the proper diagnostic tests were performed on the correct blood samples.” St.Peter also invited her in.
The third applicant stepped forward and said, “I was an HMO manager, and I helped people get cost-effective healthcare.” St. Peter said, “You can come in too.” As the HMO manager walked by, St. Peter quietly added, “But you can only stay three days. After that you can go to hell.”
