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Avicebronyesterday at 11:04 PM3 repliesview on HN

When you cut out the insurance middlemen and pharmaceutical companies driving up record profits at the expense of care you can get pretty far with less in taxes


Replies

daedrdevyesterday at 11:43 PM

Insurance companies make like 2-4% hardly breaking the bank here. Pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money, but the US also funds most drug development which other countries freeload off of. US healthcare workers get a state enforced shortage to drive up their wages thanks to residency limits, but nobody ever wants to look at that.

If you can't tell I am extremely pessimistic about the changes of universal healthcare improving on our current system. And to be clear it's universal, not unlimited.

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rayinertoday at 2:17 AM

The big 7 U.S. health insurers made $55 billion in profits in 2025. Pharma industry profits on U.S. revenue was about $100 billion. Total U.S. healthcare spending in 2025 was $5.7 trillion. Cutting insurer and pharma profits out of the equation entirely would reduce spending by 2.7%.

I support universal health care. But most of its proponents are suffer from innumeracy and magical thinking. It’s very scary to me that we’d put these people in charge of health care reform.

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richwateryesterday at 11:54 PM

You cut out the insurance middlemen but you introduce government bureaucracy.

There's absolutely no way the government operates more efficiency in this space.

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