It's really interesting to learn about all the variables that make a good chair - pressure distribution, the seat height, castor width, centre of gravity and other geometry variables. And all of those are unique to your body.
According to other comments here, a custom titanium chair costs about $4k, so $1k is cheap compared to that.
You are missing the experience of being tied to a wheelchair for a complete day.
None of the chairs you have shown are suitable for daily use. Even the "Magnesium" one.
One of the most important point (beside being the right size) is to be able to move the center of the rear wheels just behind the center of gravity. Too far rear and you have very good stability (hospital chairs), but you need to use most of your strength just to be able to turn (and you take a lot of space for turning). Too far ahead and it becomes dangerous. So it must be adjustable. In theory this should be possible on a cheap wheelchair, but I have never seen it. Probably the weight ditribution is too different (most is on the rear wheel) that the chassis must be thought differently?
I don’t know much about wheelchairs but I watched the video in the article and by the looks of it these are a certain class of wheelchair and they don’t look comparable to what you’ve linked to. My guess is photos are deceiving and there’s a handful of features worth having if you spend your waking moments in one of these things. The reviewer in the video mentioned some features he liked and disliked, wheels specifically can be a huge factor and tend to be expensive upgrades
There are wheelchairs with specific features, such as one-handed folding, so you can get in and out of the car on your own. Models for people with specific needs, different levels of independence and physical ability (hemiplegics).
NaW offers a fairly basic product, which doesn't look foldable, for example.
I suspect it's like anything in the US - despite much of the global research being done there at taxpayer expense, Americans seem to get screwed over on anything health or medicine related. And they continue to argue that their health system is a good one, for some weird Stockholm Syndrome-esque reason I suppose.
I would assume the wheelchairs I linked above are made in China and anyone enterprising could import them for < $500 USD per unit. I also assume their insurance cartel would have an argument why they're not suitable, despite being suitable for the other 7.8B people in the world.
> I suspect its more of you don't really know the situation at all.
> You're fundamentally misunderstanding the market for wheelchairs.
You're correct, hence my terms like "assume" and "suspect". Can you enlighten me? My research has not helped me understand the daily impact and variances between a 1x and 50-100x priced product. In most industries the difference is very obvious with this large of a gap.
It is obvious if one bothers to actually look. But instead, you just wanted to hate on the US instead of spending even a minute looking and understanding. Try not letting your biases overwhelm your outlook in life and actually look at reality instead of jumping into assumptions.
The cheap products we've shared here just have a single list of specs for the dimensions. Here's an order form for one of those expensive chairs:
Just look at how many different widths and lengths and angles and diameters these things are optioned out to. The different sizes, shapes, and styles of support inserts. And for a lot of those measures is not just that it is adjusted to those sizes; it's built to that size by order. There's not just a stock room with size 1, 2, and 3 chairs there; they're all custom made to order. Because everyone is different, with many in wheelchairs having very specific needs in terms of shape and support. It's like comparing a one-size-fits-all t-shirt to a custom-tailored suit and expecting it to be the same price, comfort, and fit.
And then on top of that all the components used in the higher end wheelchairs are just way nicer and far more rugged. Far better bearings. Higher quality fabrics and padding (most of those cheap ones are just plastic slings!). Wheels which are far truer and better built. Things which are welded instead of just cheap bolts and nuts holding it together.
Having a chair that doesn't fit you right or doesn't support you properly leads to more injuries. RSI injuries, pressure injuries, joint injuries, circulation issues, all kinds of other problems. You're bound to develop a whole host of issues if you're going to use one of these cheap chairs all day every day for your life.
It's like asking what's the difference between a wooden stool with a wobble and a $5,000 ergonomic rolling and reclining desk chair. Acting like those differences are non-obvious. Except, it's something the owner has to use every day of their life to go practically everywhere and do anything. For someone who has to be in the chair every day of their life, it is not just luxury. It is injury prevention. It is making their challenging life just a little bit smoother.
I'm certain whoever actually foots the bill for a nice, custom wheelchair wherever you are is probably spending similar-ish money for a similar-ish product. Maybe it is a private insurer, maybe it is the government. But if its someone actually needing to spend their life in a chair, I'd hope whoever is paying buys something far nicer than the cheap chairs we've linked here. They're not good for anything more than being wheeled around in a hospital for a short trip with an orderly pushing it. Or if you're just needing a chair for a few weeks to a month or two.
I do agree the US healthcare system is trash, but not because custom wheelchairs have a somewhat high cost. Its trash because so many end up needing to cover that high cost out of pocket. The people making a high-quality wheelchair from high-quality components should be well compensated in the same way someone making a really nice office chair should be well compensated. But since people need these to effectively function, cost shouldn't prevent people from accessing them IMO.
> Americans seem to get screwed over on anything health or medicine related. And they continue to argue that their health system is a good one, for some weird Stockholm Syndrome-esque reason I suppose.
"U.S. allies ride free on American defense spending. Health care, indeed, is a kind of second NATO."
You're right. Historically, a significant amount of medical innovation came from the US due to the gross abuse of the US taxpayer.
> If the world’s largest health economy limited drug companies to “fair” returns — as other countries try to — then few new drugs would be created.
This simply isn't true as peacetime modern governments are continually turning on the tap for medical and health research, with little to no impact on the public system:
Both you and the article you linked seem to work off the assumption that nobody would have filled the void without the US. But motivation is reduced when someone else is doing the work for you.
1) How uncomfortable lower end chairs can be for their users
2) How many of the little design decisions in lower end chairs can add up to a lot of pain
3) The chairs you buy online are almost exclusively all made in China using Chinese labor and pricing, where as the one in the linked article is made in the US paying US wages
But I want to talk about 1 and 2 for a moment. My spouse has developed a need for a wheel chair from time to time, so we originally bought a cheap one, just like many of the ones listed there. Specifically we bought one of these Drive chairs for about $140 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KMKVEK/).
Among the small "papercuts" of using this thing:
* It was extremely uncomfortable after an hour or so. Bringing extra cushions and padding was a must
* The bearings were pretty awful and there was quite a bit of rolling resistance
* After enough times being transported folded up in a trunk, the plastic wheels deformed enough that one side rubbed on the frame every rotation. Not enough to make it unusable, but enough to add even more rolling resistance, in addition to requiring constant adjustments to keep going straight
* Misc bolts and pieces on the frame would catch and lock with each other making un-folding or folding the chair unexpectedly complex at random times
* 41 lbs is a LOT of extra weight to be rolling around with just your arms when you're already trying to roll yourself along.
* There was so much slop in the frame, rolling over any uneven surfaces was an exercise in frustration at best. Everything moved and shifted and your balance was all over as things twisted and buckled under any surface that was a completely flat linoleum hospital floor. In fact the thing that finally did the chair in was a trip to a park where we needed to be rolling over the grass and roots and dirt. A twist too far going over a rough patch of ground broke some of the pieces that hold everything together.
It was a perfectly serviceable chair for an occasional need that lasted us about 4 years of light duty use (some of which was during COVID, so very light duty in some cases). And when we replaced it, we never even considered buying the same one. It wasn't worth the money saved. It's hard to really describe, but all the little pain points made it so that in many ways the chair felt more limiting than the medical condition itself. And we were and are extremely fortunate that we're still able to decide on a case by case basis whether to use or not use the chair. If it was something we had to use every day, all day, I would wager by the end of the first month we would have been looking for something else, and it might have lasted a whole year before breaking.
it seems to be similar with hearing aids. I recently saw a video explaining that the new airpods will be usable as hearing aids. the video went on to explain that this will make them great value for deaf people as hearing aids can run into the thousands of dollars. I just checked and you can get hearing aids in my country for less than $100. so what's going on?
I'm guessing this is either a non-problem, i.e. the expenses are being exaggerated by competitors; or it's some kind of private healthcare thing where everything is insanely expensive because the government doesn't negotiate prices centrally
My dad bought hearing aids that cost like £2000 (private, UK). The market here is kind of split between fairly mundane ones you can buy in shops for £100 or so (or free on the NHS) and fancy ones you get prescribed by an audiologist with computer sound processing that are more like £2000.
My dad's never actually cracked his biggest problem which was if you are at a table with many people talking, picking out one conversation. It looks like the coming Apple AI may actually be able to do that. It's a hard problem technically.
Actually, it isn't that hard a problem technically, you just need a directional mic. I'm deaf, I have NHS issued equipment, and I have a specific setting that makes the mics more directional. Additionally (slightly off topic for the reply, but perhaps of interest) I also have the option of using a discreet wireless mic about the size of a pencap that I can give to presenters or pass round the table. Again, NHS issued, for which I'm very grateful.
And what look like slightly fancier ones for between 300 and 500 GBP: https://www.millercare.co.uk/collections/self-propel-wheelch...
A magnesium alloy framed one is only 450 GBP: https://www.mobilitysmart.co.uk/magnelite-self-propelled-whe...
So what am I missing?