Part of the problem is that the existence of the middle man adds a lot of costs: insurance company salaries, their executives, doctor's office billing coding, advertising, etc.
The shareholders take home only a fraction. But a lot of money gets spent that simply doesn't need to be. Other countries avoid the deadweight loss of the middle man.
>Part of the problem is that the existence of the middle man adds a lot of costs: insurance company salaries, their executives, doctor's office billing coding, advertising, etc.
that's not a sophisticated analysis. it would be like saying mcdonalds is unecessarily expensive because executive pay, and cars, and dry cleaning, etc. etc. yet, if you tried to found a competitor, you'd have all those same expenses. even charities have to pay management.
insurance companies make money because their aggregate risk is less than your individual risk, and you really don't want your individual risk so you are willing to pay them extra, a premium, to get them to shore up your downside. After that it's like any other company selling any other thing.
The genius of the US way is that the politicians avoid the heat when healthcare coverage is denied. Whereas UK and Canadian politicians have to answer to their constituents.
Of course, now that getting murdered is on the table, the US health insurance executives might want to up their compensation.
> Whereas UK and Canadian politicians have to answer to their constituents.
Yeah, and "politicians have to answer to their constituents" is how we got the failed insurance markets in California and Florida. This thread has now gone full circle.
That is the problem with conflating insurance and subsidy.
To buy votes, politicians sell “insurance”, but in reality it is a subsidy to a specific group of taxpayers.
When a government directly pays for healthcare, it can’t be called insurance, and so limits to the subsidy are easily attributed to the government leaders.
Whereas, if a government has the population buy “insurance” from non governmental entities, then it can pretend (for the layperson) that it isn’t a government subsidy and so the laypeople can blame limits of the subsidy on someone else.
Obviously, health insurance in the US is far from health insurance and premiums are closer to taxes being paid rather than premiums for one’s own health risks.
That isn’t so true in property and casualty insurance, at least not until governments like California step in.
no offence but that murder had nothing to do with what is right or caring for the people just a game same reason trains got graffiti on them. At most a beautiful lesson in the power that comes with controlling the narrative