I wish more people were asking “why does the hospital charge such absurdly high fees?” instead of “why is Blue Cross trying to not pay those absurdly high fees?”
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I wish more people were asking “why does the hospital charge such absurdly high fees?” instead of “why is Blue Cross trying to not pay those absurdly high fees?”
This. Even if you eliminated all profit margins of insurers you only decrease medical costs in the US by a tiny fraction, still leaving you far worse off than in other countries. They suck, but they're a cheap scapegoat for simpleton populists who don't know or don't want to fix the actual problems.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/insurance-companies-arent-the-...
Except the insurers increasingly own the cost centers.
The big insurers own the PBMs, the specialty pharmacies, the doctors, the urgent care networks. United Healthcare is the country’s single largest employer of physicians. https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/07/unitedhealth-surgery-cen...
They pay their controlled ones higher rates, even. https://www.statnews.com/2024/11/25/unitedhealth-higher-paym...