[yalogin]

> Estimates suggest that the country wastes more than $265 billion annually due to this administrative complexity, and that the rate of increase in administrative costs has outpaced that of overall health care expenditures

This happens for a reason. A 265 Billion industry (however fragmented) has developed to create/maintain and profit off the complexity. I am extremely pessimistic that they will allow this to be fixed. It might be just too big to fail at this point. However, it might plague "medicare for all" systems too, unless it's completely a separate system somehow. These entities will make every effort to get into the "medicare for all" flows as well.

[coredog64]

Private insurance companies are already deeply ingrained in Medicare, and I’m not just talking about Medicare Advantage. HHS has 5 or 6 large regional contracts where they have a private insurance company handle most of the administration. Uncle Sugar just pays the bills.

Which isn’t really too much different from private insurance at a large employer: Cigna or whoever just brings admin and a network of providers, while your employer pays the bills out of some actuarially sound pool of money.

Smaller employers can’t usually swing this, and that’s where the crappy rates come from.