> Health insurance in America is broadly profitable
Health insurance is actually a lot less profitable than most big businesses. Something like half as profitable as the S&P 500 average.
But ignoring that, there are also big non-profit insurers. They aren't appreciably different.
There's a big misconception that if we could just remove profit from our healthcare system every problem would be solved. However, if you look at where healthcare dollars go, profit and administrative overhead (insurance, hospital admin, etc.) are a single digit percentage of overall spending. If you could wave your magic wand and make it go away tomorrow, things would barely change.
Note that even countries with socialized medicine have administrative overhead in the single digit percentage range, so it's not actually possible to drive it to zero.
We severely overestimate how much of our healthcare dollars go to profits and executive compensation. I think because those are the only safe targets to be mad at. Nobody wants to engage in conversations about getting surgeons to take lower compensation or limiting certain types of care (which is very much a thing in any medicine system). American healthcare is expensive, but we Americans also consume (and demand) much more healthcare than elsewhere in the world.
We have a lot of unnecessary gatekeeping. Prescriptions come to mind.
Unless it’s addictive or subject to group effects (e.g. antibiotics), it should be OTC. If someone kills themselves self administering another YouTube cure, that’s on the influencer and the patient.
The nice thing about having grown up in and around the underground cash economy that drives the USA is that I never forget that it’s usually cheaper and easier to just call your guy than to go wait in line like a schnook.
My first box of Paxlovid was bought for cash.
When Germany offered me only NSAIDs the 9th day after using a bone saw on me, the black market was there for me too.
Seems cat food would be an easy one. Want me to ask my guys, or are you sorted now?
The cat is dead now, but not before I was squeezed for a few grand by excessive regulation. At the time, I was wishing there was an underground option for blood testing. You don't need a 300k degree to stick a needle in a cat or read a PDF to me.
Kinda like how a barber in my state need a 20k license and 1000 hours of training, but on steroids. At least at home haircuts aren't illegal (yet).
I'm not really sure I understand the rebuttal. Are you implying that pharmacy companies play no role in healthcare generally? If you make that claim I assume you've never had to fill a prescription, ever. Because pharmacies and drug prices play a GIANT role in the cost of healthcare. I mean, even the US government feels this way
> Faced with competition, some pharmaceutical companies are cutting deals with insurance companies to favor their brand-name products over cheaper generics. Insurers pay less, but sometimes consumers pay more.
Health insurance is actually a lot less profitable than most big businesses. Something like half as profitable as the S&P 500 average.
But ignoring that, there are also big non-profit insurers. They aren't appreciably different.
There's a big misconception that if we could just remove profit from our healthcare system every problem would be solved. However, if you look at where healthcare dollars go, profit and administrative overhead (insurance, hospital admin, etc.) are a single digit percentage of overall spending. If you could wave your magic wand and make it go away tomorrow, things would barely change.
Note that even countries with socialized medicine have administrative overhead in the single digit percentage range, so it's not actually possible to drive it to zero.
We severely overestimate how much of our healthcare dollars go to profits and executive compensation. I think because those are the only safe targets to be mad at. Nobody wants to engage in conversations about getting surgeons to take lower compensation or limiting certain types of care (which is very much a thing in any medicine system). American healthcare is expensive, but we Americans also consume (and demand) much more healthcare than elsewhere in the world.