[tptacek]

$360B in admin/net cost of insurance. $2.5T in practitioner costs.

[ceejayoz]

> $2.5T in practitioner costs.

Some of which is those practicioners' admin cost from dealing with the insurers. (And, you know, doing the actual work.)

Denials are nice and cheap. Fighting them is not.

[tptacek]

You stated this claim upthread, for the record, and tracked down an actual Canada vs. US statistic on this, which turned out to account for roughly 3.6% of total provider inpatient/outpatient expense.

[ceejayoz]

In 2011, when my premiums were $1600 a month. I dropped my plan when it hit $4900/month to go on my employer’s crappier plan.

And as noted in that other conversation, this is one aspect of many. UHC isn’t pursuing vertical integration for funsies.

[tptacek]

That's not an argument; it's just vibes. Whenever we get actual numbers to look at, your arguments fall apart.

Again, I want to be clear: I'm not here to defend the American health system. It's a disaster. It's just clear to me you don't have a bead on why that is. (The answer is artificial scarcity of practitioners, overprescription, and lack of price transparency).

[ceejayoz]

> That's not an argument; it's just vibes.

So is “insurance doesn’t have any externalities that might hide in my very broadly categorized numbers”.

[tptacek]

Non-falsifiable argument is non-falsifiable. I could literally present you evidence that 2.2T of our medical expenditure is due to a price-fixing ring in syringes, and you'd still be able to use the same argument.