Nate Silver: The Health Care Elevator Pitch
December 18, 2009 by Nik, under Blog.
Nate Silver addresses criticism from the left and makes another great argument for health care reform. His elevator pitch:
Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln are probably willing to sign off on $900 billion in public subsidies so that poor and sick people can have better access to health care. Is there really no way we can make this work for us?
Another noteworthy passage:
But that money isn’t really going to poor people — it’s going to Cigna! Then there’s an argument I have much less sympathy for: that the $900 billion is not ultimately going to disadvantaged people, but rather to insurance companies. Some of the money, indeed, will turn into insurance company profits. But how much? Probably not very much: most likely about $30 billion of the $900 billion, or about 3.3 percent, which is the average profit margin in the insurance industry. The insurance industry is actually not very profitable — it may be inefficient, but it is not especially profitable. The vast majority of that $900 billion goes to improve health outcomes for poor and sick people.
The whole thing’s worth a read, if you have the time.
