That depends. Specialists have much higher rates than GP’s. Insurance for GP’s is 3-4% of their income. I was involved in a group plan and it wasn’t more than 2%. A related driver of cost is the practice of defensive medicine stemming from fear of malpractice cases. The main driver of healthcare costs is administration due to a highly fragmented system. Trying to navigate the payment structure is a nightmare. Second is a for profit system. We trade healthcare on wall street like pork bellies. Then there’s the unhealthy lifestyles and aging population. There’s more, but those are the main costs. Until something is done to standardize the fee structure and move toward single payer, costs will continue to spiral. The conundrum is that if we move toward single payer, it’s going to create a tremendous earthquake in the economy because of massive layoffs. That may be inevitable with AI beginning to make healthcare decisions.
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spin_dry ·
