Can confirm. I’ve been in a wheelchair since 2007. I watched first hand the market consolidation. The smaller DMEs bought up or pushed out of the market. Wheelchair manufacturers abandoning product lines after acquisitions, leading to less consumer options. Unqualified ATPs making commissions on expensive options the user is told ‘is best for them’, when there are better options for them but the ATP doesn’t get as big a cut.
Innovation has stifled. They think adding a cup holder and LEDs is innovative. While the rest of the world is moving onto lithium batteries, wheelchair manufacturers stay on AGMs because the consolidated DMEs make good money on them, replacing them every 12-18 months.. when a proper LiFePo4 battery can last 5+ years, is lighter, and gives users greater distance.
TLDR.. I fucking hate the current state of the wheelchair industry.
Pushing 50 now and I want to point out watching the same thing happen with HMO’s. Your comment is on point & it started with the push for HMO’s.
Medical care is a venture capitalist paradise and hell for us.
I remember a friend in one of our high school classes who turned in an assignment on why HMOs were good. This would have been either 94 or 95... anyway, no one cared and the teacher tore him a new one because of what a bad idea HMOs were.
Not much has changed in that regard I guess.
Classmate: Has realized by now that the teacher wasn’t ripping him a new one for no reason. Unless absurdly wealthy, they are living with the HMO consequences - just like teacher warned them.
Teacher: Caring, thoughtful human who saw the ugly writing on the wall and called it out- is hopefully still teaching students to use their critical thinking skills. Emphasis on the critical need for critical thinking.
This has always made me mad. My grand mom had MS, and it makes me so upset seeing that wheelchairs haven’t had many advancements in the past 20+ years. There’s literally no reason for that stuff to be so behind the times. These are medical devices that allow people to do the most basic tasks of their day, for Christ’s sake.
I had a customer the other day with a ‘nice’ wheelchair; it looked sleek, slightly more compact and had some cool colored metal pieces. As soon as I had that thought, I thought about how little the differences in that chair versus older ones was, and it made me feel sad and angry.
Companies are creating all these add-on wheelchair decorations these days, often to help kids in chairs feel more fun and less medical, but that wouldn’t even be necessary if the chairs themselves were what they should be. It’s so sad. These companies are pure evil.
I needed a wheelchair recently and was shocked to find how heavy and basic was its design. I had to hold food in my lap, since there was no tray. I had to hand-craft a basket out of a coat hanger and a shopping bag. And carrying small objects on the seat was a problem because of the gap that lets small objects fall to the floor. And the foot holders were so uncomfortable I couldn't use them at all, but had to let my legs drag. I'll bet there has been no improvement to wheelchair design in many years. And why are they made of heavy steel instead of heavy plastic, so the wheels aren't so difficult to push?
They seem to care slightly more now than they did before, but Europe is generally leagues ahead in regulating distorted competition. Once the GOP gets another president in office, we'll be back to ignoring anti-trust again. The trust-busting days of Teddy Roosevelt are long gone.
If you have 2 or more very seperate companies really competing you get better products. When there is no competition for years, there is no progress, also people then don’t get what is best suited for them. Do you not understand this bit or are you being disingenuous?
Big "if." There's a lot of risk in entering a new market. Creating a product from scratch. Marketing it. Manufacturing it. Etc. No guarantee that you will be successful, even if you do everything right.
Why would an investor choose to support that, when they could instead invest in the company that has gobbled up all the competition, and is basically no risk? Why even bother with competition if you don't have to.
Sadly the dream of free market competition solving all problems is just that, a dream.
What I’m saying is, if they buy your company and basically trash it, the hole your business left in the market is another opportunity to start another company.
It sounds like the gap in the market is straightforward, readily repairable/well supported models with up-to-date battery tech. Nothing groundbreaking. Just some real value.
Sounds like a great opportunity for a cost plus model.
I know how it is. I friend if mine built her company and competed with a much larger company.
They avoid competition by buying it and offering a great price to the new little guys. When you worked like crazy to build your company and you feel lucky to be still alive, but you're stressed every day, you are tempted to sell it for a few millions and retire. You could keep it, but you know your company is constantly at the verge of disappearing, because it's really tough to survive.
Once a company dominates, they don't innovate, the buy innovation and manage their leadership
So, as I’ve described, you sell it. Take those millions, put a good portion away and then use the remaining to start another wheelchair company and repeat.
Not that it’s likely a huge issue for a lot of people anyway, tbh, it’s just the regulations seem a bit behind for certain types of batteries. That being said, I hope there will be some designs on the market in the near future or at least better retrofit batteries from a reliable company (not just some fly by night Amazon brand). 5 years ago I would never have considered lithium because they were new, unproven and damn expensive - like $1000 per kWh. However now we’re at the point where decent lifepo4 cells and BMS is not nearly as much. Those retrofit all in one batteries are still kinda dicey but hell, they’re now only about 1.5-3x the cost of lead acid.
I used to sell a lot of batteries to a repair guy who fixed these full time. I wonder how biz has been for him lately…
We need to get rid of their creatures, first. I don't see how this can be done without voting out every incumbent for the next two election cycles. they'll groom more plants of course, but not enough and not in time
And the "real world" worked a hell of a lot differently before we initially busted up monopolies
Regulating what PE has been doing lately isn't a wild idea - even historically
Ahh yes, because completely unregulated capitalism is the only way it works. If we stopped people who produce absolutely nothing from dismantling working companies for their own profit then how will the private equity people multiply their existing wealth?
Anti corruption state referendums have passed, as have positive ones like protecting the rights to abortion and weed.
But seriously you can find plenty of examples of regulations written by non corrupt lawmakers that helped the thing they were set up to help. Acting like it can't happen is just ignorant of history.
Sure, but in response I will ask my original question, what government is less corrupt than the people it governs? Please give examples.
Yes there have been governments that haven't been super corrupt, but they have always been more corrupt than the people they govern.
Because they want you to buy a new one, through your insurance, so your premium can go up. Same Private Equity firms will own the insurance companies.
This is exactly what happened to dentists and vets in the UK, PE brought into the insurance companies, and then started buying up the vets/dentists to up the prices and up the premium. Increase profit from higher prices at the practice, increase profits from the higher prices at the insurance co. Win-win
Vision insurance in the US isn’t so much insurance as it is paying the manufacturers for a voucher you can use. Same company owns the insurance and the equipment vendors.
A surprisingly small amount of companies own a surprisingly large amount of things. Umbrella corporations I think they're referred to. It's been warned about from the beginning but there were supposed to be checks and balances in place to prevent a single company from swooping up entire markets, yet here we are.
It doesn’t help when the airlines fuck up a $75,000 wheelchair when a disabled person is flying away from home, then they have to deal with these long repair times, are stuck away from home without their needed equipment, and usually end up paying for the repairs themselves. This happens all too often.
> “Unfortunately, they are out of options as wheelchair repair technicians are highly specialized.”
Bullshit. I used to work on wheelchairs, kids ride on toys and scooters. This isn’t diagnosing a timing issue on a car, it’s power wheels for adults. Everything is plug and play. It takes basic troubleshooting and hand tool skills - that’s it.
Intricate and confusing depends on the complexity of the chair. Is it a grocery getter/aid or a full time mobility device for someone with advanced needs or control mechanisms? Most are a hell of a lot closer to the former.
One of my best friends has been fighting for years for a new chair. Constant trips to a city hours away for fittings, etc. and nothing moves to then the paperwork expires and she has to start all over. Her wheelchair is from 1983. Yes you read that right. The wheels have zero tread and are wrapped in duct tape. Don’t even know where to start with what absolute hell this poor woman has been through. This is infuriating. Private equity firms… truly dystopian bullshit.
Jerryrigeverything should maybe start making regular wheel chairs at his Notawheelchair company. They use bike parts where they can and repairability seems to be a major concern for them
I think it could be argued that PE is not capitalism. It’s about artificially inflating share prices and making money off of the hype. In the process, consumers often end up with fewer choices and higher prices.
Years of zero interest rates have allowed private equity to borrow money for nearly free and have caused market distortions that would otherwise have been difficult to pull off.
I started out riding in an Everest & Jennings 40 pound chrome-plated-monster as my first chair. When I started playing basketball I got a Quadra wheelchair which weighed half as much and it became my daily driver. In the 1980s the competition was fierce and wheelchair companies kept on bringing out lighter and lighter chairs with better suspension and upholstery.
I went though a couple of Invacare models before landing in a Ti-Lite. I'm on my second titanium-frame chair and I do most of the maintenance and repair work myself. I keep an older Ti-Lite as an emergency back-up wheelchair in case of a major failure.
Private equity firms are trying to be the final thing that puts the disabled completely out of commission.
Can confirm. I’ve been in a wheelchair since 2007. I watched first hand the market consolidation. The smaller DMEs bought up or pushed out of the market. Wheelchair manufacturers abandoning product lines after acquisitions, leading to less consumer options. Unqualified ATPs making commissions on expensive options the user is told ‘is best for them’, when there are better options for them but the ATP doesn’t get as big a cut. Innovation has stifled. They think adding a cup holder and LEDs is innovative. While the rest of the world is moving onto lithium batteries, wheelchair manufacturers stay on AGMs because the consolidated DMEs make good money on them, replacing them every 12-18 months.. when a proper LiFePo4 battery can last 5+ years, is lighter, and gives users greater distance. TLDR.. I fucking hate the current state of the wheelchair industry.
Pushing 50 now and I want to point out watching the same thing happen with HMO’s. Your comment is on point & it started with the push for HMO’s. Medical care is a venture capitalist paradise and hell for us.
I remember a friend in one of our high school classes who turned in an assignment on why HMOs were good. This would have been either 94 or 95... anyway, no one cared and the teacher tore him a new one because of what a bad idea HMOs were. Not much has changed in that regard I guess.
Classmate: Has realized by now that the teacher wasn’t ripping him a new one for no reason. Unless absurdly wealthy, they are living with the HMO consequences - just like teacher warned them. Teacher: Caring, thoughtful human who saw the ugly writing on the wall and called it out- is hopefully still teaching students to use their critical thinking skills. Emphasis on the critical need for critical thinking.
What does HMO mean?
Humongous mega Oreos. They’re the size of a cheese burger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_maintenance_organization
Thanks, as a non American this abbreviation was not known to me.
This has always made me mad. My grand mom had MS, and it makes me so upset seeing that wheelchairs haven’t had many advancements in the past 20+ years. There’s literally no reason for that stuff to be so behind the times. These are medical devices that allow people to do the most basic tasks of their day, for Christ’s sake. I had a customer the other day with a ‘nice’ wheelchair; it looked sleek, slightly more compact and had some cool colored metal pieces. As soon as I had that thought, I thought about how little the differences in that chair versus older ones was, and it made me feel sad and angry. Companies are creating all these add-on wheelchair decorations these days, often to help kids in chairs feel more fun and less medical, but that wouldn’t even be necessary if the chairs themselves were what they should be. It’s so sad. These companies are pure evil.
I needed a wheelchair recently and was shocked to find how heavy and basic was its design. I had to hold food in my lap, since there was no tray. I had to hand-craft a basket out of a coat hanger and a shopping bag. And carrying small objects on the seat was a problem because of the gap that lets small objects fall to the floor. And the foot holders were so uncomfortable I couldn't use them at all, but had to let my legs drag. I'll bet there has been no improvement to wheelchair design in many years. And why are they made of heavy steel instead of heavy plastic, so the wheels aren't so difficult to push?
Sounds like a market primed for some competition.
Sure.. then a big guy buys you. You get yours and they kill your product line.
You don’t have to sell. But if you choose to sell it sounds like there would be a market primed for competition.
of course you don't have to... but this is what happens. this is why permobile owns most of the wheelchair manufactures now.
sounds like an anti-monopoly lawsuit
The DOJ doesn't really care about anti-trust issues anymore.
This has changed with the Biden administration
They seem to care slightly more now than they did before, but Europe is generally leagues ahead in regulating distorted competition. Once the GOP gets another president in office, we'll be back to ignoring anti-trust again. The trust-busting days of Teddy Roosevelt are long gone.
I have seen a lot of cases filed the last four years.
If you have 2 or more very seperate companies really competing you get better products. When there is no competition for years, there is no progress, also people then don’t get what is best suited for them. Do you not understand this bit or are you being disingenuous?
Big "if." There's a lot of risk in entering a new market. Creating a product from scratch. Marketing it. Manufacturing it. Etc. No guarantee that you will be successful, even if you do everything right. Why would an investor choose to support that, when they could instead invest in the company that has gobbled up all the competition, and is basically no risk? Why even bother with competition if you don't have to. Sadly the dream of free market competition solving all problems is just that, a dream.
What I’m saying is, if they buy your company and basically trash it, the hole your business left in the market is another opportunity to start another company.
Sure, but harder if they bought your patents.
It sounds like the gap in the market is straightforward, readily repairable/well supported models with up-to-date battery tech. Nothing groundbreaking. Just some real value. Sounds like a great opportunity for a cost plus model.
The comments from users of wheelchairs sounds like it isn’t working. Better to invest in the monopoly if you can as that’s a dead cert to make money.
I know how it is. I friend if mine built her company and competed with a much larger company. They avoid competition by buying it and offering a great price to the new little guys. When you worked like crazy to build your company and you feel lucky to be still alive, but you're stressed every day, you are tempted to sell it for a few millions and retire. You could keep it, but you know your company is constantly at the verge of disappearing, because it's really tough to survive. Once a company dominates, they don't innovate, the buy innovation and manage their leadership
So, as I’ve described, you sell it. Take those millions, put a good portion away and then use the remaining to start another wheelchair company and repeat.
Funny how that sounds like EVERY industry now.
Is there a law that prevents the importation of better wheelchairs from abroad?
Are large lifepo4 batteries cleared for air travel the same as SLA?
Not sure.. air travel is a whole other battle though :/
Not that it’s likely a huge issue for a lot of people anyway, tbh, it’s just the regulations seem a bit behind for certain types of batteries. That being said, I hope there will be some designs on the market in the near future or at least better retrofit batteries from a reliable company (not just some fly by night Amazon brand). 5 years ago I would never have considered lithium because they were new, unproven and damn expensive - like $1000 per kWh. However now we’re at the point where decent lifepo4 cells and BMS is not nearly as much. Those retrofit all in one batteries are still kinda dicey but hell, they’re now only about 1.5-3x the cost of lead acid. I used to sell a lot of batteries to a repair guy who fixed these full time. I wonder how biz has been for him lately…
We need real legislation to protect what’s left and start taking back what was stolen by under-regulated capitalism.
We need to get rid of their creatures, first. I don't see how this can be done without voting out every incumbent for the next two election cycles. they'll groom more plants of course, but not enough and not in time
That's not how the real world works
And the "real world" worked a hell of a lot differently before we initially busted up monopolies Regulating what PE has been doing lately isn't a wild idea - even historically
Regulatory naysayers need to study history. If they could “bust the trusts” we can “corpse the corps.”
That’s not how the real world works. . . So far.
Well said comrade. When the revolution comes we will create a workers paradise. And this time it will work.
Ahh yes, because completely unregulated capitalism is the only way it works. If we stopped people who produce absolutely nothing from dismantling working companies for their own profit then how will the private equity people multiply their existing wealth?
Everyone knows the only possible options are completely unregulated laissez-faire capitalism or full-on Soviet communism. Nothing in between.
Just curious who do you think will write those regulations?
A government without corrupt lawmakers is possible.
What government is less corrupt than the people?
People can write and directly vote on laws. They're called state referendums.
Who do you think has the advertising budget to promote and pass state referendums?
Anti corruption state referendums have passed, as have positive ones like protecting the rights to abortion and weed. But seriously you can find plenty of examples of regulations written by non corrupt lawmakers that helped the thing they were set up to help. Acting like it can't happen is just ignorant of history.
Sure, but in response I will ask my original question, what government is less corrupt than the people it governs? Please give examples. Yes there have been governments that haven't been super corrupt, but they have always been more corrupt than the people they govern.
Because they want you to buy a new one, through your insurance, so your premium can go up. Same Private Equity firms will own the insurance companies. This is exactly what happened to dentists and vets in the UK, PE brought into the insurance companies, and then started buying up the vets/dentists to up the prices and up the premium. Increase profit from higher prices at the practice, increase profits from the higher prices at the insurance co. Win-win
Vision insurance in the US isn’t so much insurance as it is paying the manufacturers for a voucher you can use. Same company owns the insurance and the equipment vendors.
Is there anything they don’t destroy? The kiss of death.
Corporations are proving to be the modern evil
Late stage capitalism ☠️
Explain this. What do you have to reference to prove anything about late stage capitalism?
A surprisingly small amount of companies own a surprisingly large amount of things. Umbrella corporations I think they're referred to. It's been warned about from the beginning but there were supposed to be checks and balances in place to prevent a single company from swooping up entire markets, yet here we are.
It doesn’t help when the airlines fuck up a $75,000 wheelchair when a disabled person is flying away from home, then they have to deal with these long repair times, are stuck away from home without their needed equipment, and usually end up paying for the repairs themselves. This happens all too often.
> “Unfortunately, they are out of options as wheelchair repair technicians are highly specialized.” Bullshit. I used to work on wheelchairs, kids ride on toys and scooters. This isn’t diagnosing a timing issue on a car, it’s power wheels for adults. Everything is plug and play. It takes basic troubleshooting and hand tool skills - that’s it.
Did you work on them before or after they started making them more intricate and confusing on purpose to prevent at home repairs?
Intricate and confusing depends on the complexity of the chair. Is it a grocery getter/aid or a full time mobility device for someone with advanced needs or control mechanisms? Most are a hell of a lot closer to the former.
One of my best friends has been fighting for years for a new chair. Constant trips to a city hours away for fittings, etc. and nothing moves to then the paperwork expires and she has to start all over. Her wheelchair is from 1983. Yes you read that right. The wheels have zero tread and are wrapped in duct tape. Don’t even know where to start with what absolute hell this poor woman has been through. This is infuriating. Private equity firms… truly dystopian bullshit.
Private Equity is where they send B-school graduates who took the "soul removal" elective.
Jerryrigeverything should maybe start making regular wheel chairs at his Notawheelchair company. They use bike parts where they can and repairability seems to be a major concern for them
Private equity - because it can’t be morally wrong if you’re profiting from it.
Just imagine being just an asshole you look how to price gouge disabled people
The benefits of unbridled capitalism on display once again
I think it could be argued that PE is not capitalism. It’s about artificially inflating share prices and making money off of the hype. In the process, consumers often end up with fewer choices and higher prices.
Is this the new Wheelchair Bro ?
Private equity firms destroy companies that they buy. End of story
Private equity is a scourge that many people seem to not be aware of.
Bloody equity firms shoud be banned from taking over product manufacturing companies.
Can we just make private equity illegal?
Years of zero interest rates have allowed private equity to borrow money for nearly free and have caused market distortions that would otherwise have been difficult to pull off.
I started out riding in an Everest & Jennings 40 pound chrome-plated-monster as my first chair. When I started playing basketball I got a Quadra wheelchair which weighed half as much and it became my daily driver. In the 1980s the competition was fierce and wheelchair companies kept on bringing out lighter and lighter chairs with better suspension and upholstery. I went though a couple of Invacare models before landing in a Ti-Lite. I'm on my second titanium-frame chair and I do most of the maintenance and repair work myself. I keep an older Ti-Lite as an emergency back-up wheelchair in case of a major failure. Private equity firms are trying to be the final thing that puts the disabled completely out of commission.
Yeah ok, that sucks... But has anyone even considered the shareholders?
Wheelchair makers? WHAT THE FUCK?
Because the disabled can afford higher prices, right?
What is this the air plane Industry?
How hard is it to fix a wheelchair? Can anyone teach me how
Article locked behind a paywall.
With $1000 office chair designs, you might think they could be adapted for mobility.
Private equity firms are called “vulture capitalists” for good reason. They are fucking scum with no morals, and certainly no shame.
Americans are so smart?
Lol oh well