{"id":928,"date":"2026-07-12T04:41:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=928"},"modified":"2026-07-12T04:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:41:44","slug":"the-wrong-people-hold-health-care-purse-strings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=928","title":{"rendered":"The Wrong People Hold Health Care Purse Strings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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W<\/span>hen the American Heart Association (of which I was a member) reports on our \u201chealthcare\u00a0affordability crisis,\u2019 they describe a major symptom for both the nation and individual Americans. They do not identify the etiology or root cause of unaffordability: \u201cbureaucratic diversion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Death of a Woman of Principle<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, the U.S. expended $5 trillion on its healthcare system. That is a greater amount than the entire GDP of Japan. At least\u00a0half\u00a0of that enormous sum, $2.5 trillion, was spent on BURRDEN \u2014 bureaucracy, unnecessary rules and regulations, directives, enforcement, noncompliance activities \u2014 and thereby diverted from patient care.<\/p>\n

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Give\u00a0all\u00a0the money they earned to We the People (We the Patients).\u00a0\u00a0Let them shop, spend, and save.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

In 2025, the U.S federal government spent $7.0 trillion. Since it received $5.2 trillion in revenue, the deficit was $1.8 trillion. Thus,\u00a0inefficient<\/em>\u00a0healthcare spending, i.e., spending that produces no patient care, aka wasteful spending, was greater than the entire deficit.<\/p>\n

If DOGE had been able, miraculously, to eliminate wasteful government spending just on healthcare, there would have been a surplus last year, not a deficit.<\/p>\n

On the individual\/family level, \u201cunaffordable\u201d is an interesting word. Both insurance as well as care has been priced beyond the average pocketbook for years and prices keep rising. Last year double-digit\u00a0\u00a0increases in insurance costs provoked a Democrat government shutdown. Now, insurers want an average 14 percent increase\u00a0in ACA premiums for next year.<\/p>\n

Apparently, there is no brake on price increases, which could be aptly described as gouging. Individuals have no choice as to whether to pay whatever they charge. Whatever the price of health insurance, people pay it because they need health care to live and be healthy or recover from sickness.<\/p>\n

In any free market (which healthcare is\u00a0not<\/em>), there are forces tending to drive prices downward: consumers\u2019 need to economize and inter-seller competition. The absence of free market forces\u00a0\u00a0in healthcare\u00a0misaligns incentives causing prices to rise without end in sight. Consumers, aka patients, are not the payers \u2014 they are not spending out of pocket for the full, exorbitant price. Since they are (or think they are) spending OPM (other people\u2019s money), they feel no need to economize.<\/p>\n

In healthcare, sellers of both insurance and care do not compete for patients\u2019 dollars. They compete for contracts. Any price reduction caused by such competition does not redound to patients, who only see and pay<\/u>\u00a0charges, not negotiated, proprietary, and confidential prices.<\/p>\n

In 2025, 84 million American workers obtained health insurance through so-called employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI). So-called because it is not \u201csponsored\u201d by the employer. The money sent to insurance companies is wages earned by employees but not paid to them. ESHI is an obsolete hold-over from World War II wartime wage freezes that should have been repealed eight decades ago.<\/p>\n

Read more MLB\u2019s Pitching Craziness Continues<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, the average amount employers paid to insurance companies averaged\u00a0$26,993\u00a0for 84 million workers and their families. These are wages\u00a0\u00a0rightfully belonging to the employee that were diverted to insurance companies.<\/p>\n

$26,993 times 84 million equals $2.2 trillion. Intriguing how the number of $2 trillion keeps cropping up, especially if it could be used for patient care.<\/p>\n

What if workers were paid their full wages and were able to use that money for their medical needs? No third parties making decisions about medical care or spending. By the numbers, Americans could have more than $2 trillion by repealing the ESHI. They could put $26,993 in a new,\u00a0\u00a0and pay for care and insurance out of pocket.<\/p>\n

Prices would fall dramatically as free market forces mentioned above come back into effect.\u00a0\u00a0There would be no need to spend the $2.5 trillion \u201chealthcare\u201d dollars that were\u00a0diverted<\/em>\u00a0from care to pay for bureaucracy. The U.S. could then have a balanced budget.<\/p>\n

In addition to making care and insurance affordable and available, there is another benefit from repealing ESHI and \u201csend the money directly to the people\u201d (President Trump, November 2025). When people pay directly rather than third-parties and especially federal government freely expending taxpayer dollars,\u00a0medical fraud\u00a0such as the Minnesota Medicaid multi-billion-dollar scam becomes impossible.<\/p>\n

The best solution for the healthcare affordability crisis is not price fixing and certainly not more costly regulations. It is treating the root cause of unaffordability: the wrong people control healthcare spending.<\/p>\n

Give\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0the money they earned to We the People (We the Patients).\u00a0\u00a0Let them shop, spend, and save. They will use it more wisely than faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats.<\/p>\n

READ MORE from Deane Waldman:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Your Phone Got Cheaper \u2014 and Your Health Insurance Didn\u2019t<\/strong><\/p>\n

Empower Patients, Reclaim Healthcare<\/strong><\/p>\n

Empowering Patients in a Broken System<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA, is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former Director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of award-winning, \u201c<\/strong><\/em>Become an Empowered\u00a0Patient<\/strong>.\u201d Follow him on\u00a0X.com@DrDeaneW\u00a0or visit website\u00a0www.empowerpatients.info.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Read more The Summer of Deadly, Mind-Numbing Pop-Ups<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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