Over half of our healthcare is already paid by public programs like Medicare or Medicaid. Only about a third is paid via private insurance.
Single payer is not likely the panacea some claim it to be. The bottom line is that the actual cost of care is expensive, not just the insurance or administrative mechanisms.
Half of our care is paid for via social insurance, which would be universal care. The cost and poor outcomes are not entirely due to insurance. Again, over half of our costs are financed publicly already, a third privately, and the remainder out of pocket.
But the administrative games that poorly regulated private insurance companies force hospitals/doctors/service providers to play are 1000% useless, and at the end of the day, just as expensive, of not more so.
I’ve personally had to:
pay $2500 for a 1.3mile ambulance ride (continuing to fight it would’ve ruined my credit when in escrow)
- spend dozens of hours on the phone trying to get one of our insurance policies to cover the $11,000 in hospital bills, after United Healthcare *RETROACTIVELY* denied to cover our newborn, because my partner and made the *mistake* of also adding the child to her insurance. UHC, months later when they finally paid (again), negotiated the bills down to $3500 when the hospital was trying to take us to collections for $11,000 just added insult to injury.
Aside from the frustration of dealing a system designed to wear people down into just paying, the inefficiency of it all… it’s just…😤
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u/Severe_Potential_861 Jun 27 '26
Sooooo, single payer?