I don't know about you, but I'm getting rather tired of hearing pundits and politicians talking about how healthcare reform affects 17% of the economy. The implication is, of course, that we simply can't wipe out the private insurers because OMG that's 17% of the freaking economy!
I call bullsh*t!
First of all, most of the money passing into the private insurer's hands ultimately goes back out to provide for actual healthcare. I say most, but unfortunately unlike Medicare which has overhead of about 3-5%,
The Private Insurance "medical loss" ratio is about 80%
Yes, "medical loss" is their term for money that actually winds up in the providers' hands to provide healthcare services. Not that even all of this goes towards healthcare, since the providers have to deal with all the crap the private insurers saddle them with.
So 20% is what the insurers keep. Assuming they touch all healthcare dollars at one point or another (they don't, since the VA and traditional Medicare handle a significant chunk, probably on the order of 25%, I don't have the exact number but I'm sure some well-informed Kossack does), we are then talking, at most
17% x 20% x 75% = 2.55% of the economy
Not so scary any more, is it? Heck, the freaking Dow goes up or down this amount or more not so infrequently and nobody seems to be jumping out of windows over that one.
So, next time you hear the old saw about screwing with 17% of the economy and claiming we need to keep some "uniquely American" solution for the healthcare mess and not some "uniquely tried and true" solution like single-payer, remember that at the very most we are talking about 2 to 3% of the economy, if that. Piece of cookie.