Who profits most from America's baffling health-care system?
One of the baffling things to me is lack of price transparency and incentives for consumers to make value based choices.<p>Example: I just got some medication I take daily forever. Insurance will only allow it to be distributed at 90 days (qty 90) and my co-pay is $30, so 4 trips to Walgreens and $120. I just got them to fill the entire 360 pills using a GoodRx coupon and paid $53. It took a but of convincing the front clerk I knew what I was doing, he couldn&#x27;t add it up
in his brain how it was cheeper not to go through insurance.<p>Now imagine managing your health was like running your car. Everytime you went to the gas station you would pay a fixed amount through insurance, but you&#x27;re only allowed to gas up once every two weeks. Need car repair? I agine your mechanic calling your car insurance to try to get the work approved -- you need a brake job, and instead of costing $500 it will cost $5000, but since the mechanic is in-network they have pre-negotiated the rate to $600 and you pay that amount until you hit your annual deductible of $5000 for the year.<p>The system is built for manipulation, anti-competitive practices and fraud. Think about it. Who wins? Everyone except the consumer, who has been convinced its the only way to transact is through insurance, and if it were just bigger and more centralized it would certainly be more efficient so lets get a single-payer system! That will be the final nail in the coffin of our world-class healthcare in the US. There will be no more specialization, as the system will incentivize (if not demand) commoditization of skills and services.