First, we’ve learned that for-profit admin costs are roughly 13%. Second, we’ve learned that at least half of all health insurers are NON-profit, which brings aggregate private admin costs down significantly. Third, the film’s claim for 2-3% government administrative costs is suspect. I found a number of studies which address the true costs of government run health insurance. The real (net) overhead of government health insurance is roughly equivalent with today's private, non-profit insurers.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mpr_05.htm
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-med...
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2...
http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/assets/Up...
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf...
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/...

Granted, there is a lot of hand-waving on both sides of this issue (see Krugman / NYT). There are seemingly endless ways to parse the data to one’s political advantage. But when it comes to managing money, I (like Jefferson, Madison, and most of the Constitutional founders of this country) generally distrust the Federal government. Today's govt is sick with debt. The social security insurance program is heading towards bankruptcy. Govt spending is wildly out of control.

Virtually all hospitals (roughly 90%) are non-profit. I’ve often wondered why we, as a country, have allowed profit incentives into our health insurance industry. I remain that the best solution would be to mandate ALL private health insurance as private, non-profit enterprise with reasonable controls on costs, coverage, and executive compensation – a variation on the Swiss model.

A physician’s advocacy group summarizes it this way: “…the issue is not and should not be which segment, private sector insurers or government-run plans, has the lowest administrative costs. The issue should be which does the best job of providing quality health insurance coverage for the best price. When one looks at all of the money pouring into Medicare, even with the price controls imposed by the government, the answer has to be the private sector.”

First, we’ve learned that for-profit admin costs are roughly 13%. Second, we’ve learned that at least half of all health insurers are NON-profit, which brings aggregate private admin costs down significantly. Third, the film’s claim for 2-3% government administrative costs is suspect. I found a number of studies which address the true costs of government run health insurance. The real (net) overhead of government health insurance is roughly equivalent with today's private, non-profit insurers.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mpr_05.htm
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-med...
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2...
http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/assets/Up...
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf...
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/...

Granted, there is a lot of hand-waving on both sides of this issue (see Krugman / NYT). There are seemingly endless ways to parse the data to one’s political advantage. But when it comes to managing money, I (like Jefferson, Madison, and most of the Constitutional founders of this country) generally distrust the Federal government. Today's govt is sick with debt. The social security insurance program is heading towards bankruptcy. Govt spending is wildly out of control.

Virtually all hospitals (roughly 90%) are non-profit. I’ve often wondered why we, as a country, have allowed profit incentives into our health insurance industry. I remain that the best solution would be to mandate ALL private health insurance as private, non-profit enterprise with reasonable controls on costs, coverage, and executive compensation – a variation on the Swiss model.

A physician’s advocacy group summarizes it this way: “…the issue is not and should not be which segment, private sector insurers or government-run plans, has the lowest administrative costs. The issue should be which does the best job of providing quality health insurance coverage for the best price. When one looks at all of the money pouring into Medicare, even with the price controls imposed by the government, the answer has to be the private sector.”