[soco]

The high costs can be easily traced to the insurers lobby. See their late huge profits while at the same time raising the prices because muh costs... all passing basically unchallenged even at the recent elections - not even by the left parties. While it's better than in many other places in the world, still we should complain, if only for awareness.

[lotsofpulp]

Health insurer profit margins are 2% to 6% (objectively not huge). Their medical loss ratios are 85% to 90% (the proportion of their revenue that gets paid to healthcare providers).

Let’s suppose they are eliminated completely. You save 15% at most from not paying insurers, and let’s say doctors’ offices spend 10% on all the paperwork dealing with insurance.

However, government employees have to do some of the same jobs as the insurance company employees, such as identifying overcharges/fraudulent charges, etc. Add 10% back for that work (5% on government side, 5% on provider side since it should be less paperwork since it’s only 1 entity they are dealing with).

So all in, that is 15% savings, in an ideal case. With 90% medical loss ratios, it is 10% savings (more likely).