Hacker News Reader

That's because the monopsony of universal health care fixes the prices. We're kinda caught in the middle in the US.

The assertion was that the high-regulation approach is inefficient, though.

Cheaper, universally accessible, and same outcomes seems more efficient, yes?

I'd say we have an easy way to compare this: look only at Medicare and Medicaid spend vs. the other countries.

Medicare is restricted to the elderly and the disabled; Medicaid is limited to very low-income folks. That would be a problematic comparison.

That said: https://cepr.net/publications/can-we-just-admit-were-wasting...

> Traditional Medicare has significantly lower administrative costs than private insurance with 1.1 percent of spending in 2024 going towards administration compared to between roughly 12-18 percent for private insurers in previous years. Coincidentally, the bloated administrative spending of American health care is one of the factors contributing to why the United States spends around twice as much per person compared to other developed nations even though we have worse health outcomes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com