• Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    In America, ostensibly the richest nation in the world, we ration healthcare whilst the right wing politicians jeer about Canada’s system as a slippery slope to “death panels” denying care. Whilst UHC and the gang do the same thing, and that’s ‘controlling cost’ or ‘delivering efficiency’.

    Distribution on a timescale is about capacity - if it’s slow for you to receive a service, that’s likely because there isn’t capacity. That capacity may have never existed because a bean counter deemed it more profitable to not hire nurses/buy dialysis machines/build a new hospital wing/etc. and have a backlog of cases.

    Or that capacity exists, but is sequestered and reserved for those who pay even more; personal doctors, private clinics, or specialists who are kept idle on contract for demand surges.

  • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Well yeah, that’s how they got the 120 billion. This is the system working completely as intended. “It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.”

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      7 days ago

      That’s the health funds working to gain full control of their cash cow. They don’t want to share the profits of future kills with investors so they’re buying them out

  • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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    7 days ago

    Since 2010, they’ve raked in a combined $9 trillion in revenue, netting more than $371 billion in profits

    When they phrase it that way the insurance companies actually look better than they’re commonly marked for. If I’m putting the right number of 0s in a calculator that’s a profit rate of 4.12% which is a heck of a lot less than places like the retailers where they can afford to have a half off sale.

    What we could really use is breakout of the ‘above bottom line’ expenditures to see who takes what from each $ put in.

    • Steve@startrek.website
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      7 days ago

      The metric you need is what percent of revenue was used to pay doctors and hostpitals vs how much was wasted on “buisiness expenses”

      Profit is just the leftovers that they couldnt figure out how to spend before tax time

      • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.com
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        7 days ago

        Pretty well what I said with regards to the above bottom line. I know someone has put out some nice pie chart at some point to say what % of your premium dollar goes to what, will have to try and track one down.

        • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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          7 days ago

          Several years ago, a BadgerCare (the State of Wisconsin’s Medicaid program) administrator told me once that the program has less than 3% administrative overhead. That means that out of every dollar spent on the program, $0.97 goes to pay for Wisconsin residents’ medical care. He said that private insurance companies have something closer to 30% administrative overhead. I have no idea what it is now.

      • underisk@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        Profit is a useless measure in most respects. The money they spend on executive compensation and stock buybacks isn’t part of the profits. The money they funnel to their fake charities and non profits isn’t part of the profits. The money they give to politicians and high priced consultant friends is not part of the profits. Profit is really just what’s left over after quite of few people have already profited quite a bit.

  • NickwithaC@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago
    1. Buy shares in health insurer

    2. Get claim denied

    3. Sell shares

    4. Pay medical bills and watch the share price drop for added schadenfreude