12-04-2015, 10:52 PM
(12-04-2015, 09:12 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: What's a billion dollars spread over 300M people? Not even enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. That's the problem when this debate is always framed in dollars instead of the relevant metrics. Healthcare is a $2T+ industry in the US alone - the 5% margin to health insurers is peanuts relative to the total cost.
5% off your bill. That's what insurance is taking from you. You get rid of that, and maybe some additional savings on administrative costs....you get maybe a one-time decrease of 10%, and then costs will resume their upward trajectory - incrementally cost increases would be 5% lower (so 5.7% instead 6% or whatever).
I don't begrudge what doctors and surgeons make - they made a huge investment in themselves. The fat margins are mainly in pharma and equipment. The US subsidizes global healthcare. That's the other big part of it.
The billion I mentioned was arbitrary and isn't spread over 300 million people. Let's use your number, $2T+. Five percent of $2+ trillion after costs is 100 billion, right? One hundred billion relative to 2 trillion is peanuts, but still a shit load.
