Can you cite some statistics for the margins in the healthcare sector versus the fast food sector, for example; which, we know must benefit from any increase in market participation with current margin levels?
Fast food margins range from 6-9%; this means they have about twice the capacity for cost reductions predicated on volume versus insurers (which averages to about 4.6% as of 2017) and nearly four times the capacity versus providers/hospitals (2.56% as of 2017).
Again, it is utterly impossible for increased market participation alone to achieve the 40-50% cost reduction needed to be on par with the rest of the developed world; the math simply doesn't work.
Full service restaurants tended to have that level of profit not fast food.
However, you are claiming that normal market forces instead of command economics are worse for the healthcare sector.
You have it exactly backwards: What Are the Profit Margins in the Food Business? | Bizfluent
Because they demonstrably are, at least as they exist in the States.
Further, most instances of UHC, including singlepayer, are not predicated on centrally planned/command economics so much as hybrid systems. With the exception of the NHS (the UK health system), even singlepayer tends to have a substantial private component (typically providers and suppliers), and UK singlepayer, which features public sector providers, is better at controlling and minimizing cost than those instances of it with higher private sector involvement (such as Canada).
Grocery stores have an even tighter profit margin and we know, they must benefit from that increase in market participation.
However, by solving for simple poverty we must account for a positive multiplier effect which also must engender, returns to scale.
The conditions you claim under our current regime, would no longer exist. And you cannot claim the positive multiplier effect will have no effect on the healthcare care sector.
For what is probably the 5th time or so at this point, I didn't claim that increased market participation and any derivative multiplier effects would have no impact, simply that:
A: Its impact is limited per the limited profit margins; because the profit margins are so small, you can't really hope to reduce costs by more than a small but significant amount via increased volumes, and even in a best case scenario you absolutely will not be able to rival the 40-50% relative savings of the UHC systems of developed countries.
B: Its impact can only really affect the cost metrics, while failing to address the overarching systemic issues.
My "problem" with your assumption is that it seems to claim, capitalism is less efficient even with that form of full employment of capital resources. In theory, that should never be the case.
In any case, we need "to run your entire scenario" with unemployment compensation at the equivalent to fourteen dollars an hour and a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage.
What you claim regarding the market participation potential not being sufficient cannot be allowed to be true, in any case. What is the minimum wage required to "make it true".
One time when we "crunched some numbers" in a previous argument with another poster, we came up with approximately three trillion dollar cost for UI. That means, since the Poor tend to spend most of their incomes sooner rather than later, You are claiming that the healthcare sector could not "make sufficient profit", with a three trillion dollar infusion to our economy, as an automatic stabilizer.
Per the way healthcare is structured in the states, yes, 'capitalism' is factually and clearly less efficient than UHC arrangements, and this would remain true even with full employment and full market participation (which again, a higher minimum wage absolutely cannot make happen); if you would insist that theoretically this cannot be true, your theory simply doesn't cleave to reality. Moreover, capitalism and the private sector also factors prominently into the formation of UHC systems; none of them are completely public just as the American system is not completely private, but as a rule, the greater the extent of private involvement in healthcare, the less efficient and more costly it tends to be (which likely has much to do with the fact that your audience is captive, demand is inflexible, and people will pay whatever it costs not to die).
#1: A considerable chunk of that is taxed back.
#2: An even larger chunk of that is not going into healthcare.
#3: The argument is not that healthcare providers can't make 'sufficient profit', it's that, as again repeatedly stated to the point of ad nauseum, the narrow breadth of the margin can only permit so much discounting through volume, none of which will reduce the cost of health expenditures to be nearly as efficient as other developed UHC systems. You cannot circle the square of 40-50% savings even with maximum participation per the American system as it exists; it is simply impossible. Fundamental structural reform is required.
#3: The argument is not that healthcare providers can't make 'sufficient profit', it's that, as again repeatedly stated to the point of ad nauseum, the narrow breadth of the margin can only permit so much discounting through volume, none of which will reduce the cost of health expenditures to be nearly as efficient as other developed UHC systems. You cannot circle the square of 40-50% savings even with maximum participation per the American system as it exists; it is simply impossible. Fundamental structural reform is required.
You seem to have some "vested interest in UHC".
We are "increasing the breath of potential market participation". Your claim that it is, "less efficient" than capitalism seems subjective. And, your claim that full employment capital resources won't solve our problem under Capitalism is meaningless; since it must.
Solving simple poverty, is the fundamental, structural reform. Increasing market participation has to matter to any insurance pool. And, you seem to be omitting the six trillion dollars in economic activity from that three trillion dollar investment due to the positive multiplier effect.
Since, even the Poor could have recourse to an income of last resort; it must have an automatic stabilization effect and enable greater cost reductions in that capital intensive sector than without it.
No, it's just demonstrably far better and more efficient than the existing multipayer, non-universal system.
#1: 'It must' according to what/who?
#2: My claim is that the greater the extent of private involvement in healthcare, the more expensive it tends to be, which is borne out by the facts if you care to research them. At the very least, the significantly greater public sector involvement in other developed countries permits vastly more efficient and less ethically dubious healthcare systems than America's.
No it isn't, because your inputs costs are still greater: your drugs cost more, your supplies cost more, your massive administrative spend remains bloated, labour still costs more, and everything that increased participation can have an influence on only has so much margin to decrement costs with by ramping up volumes.
To be honest, I think I'm done repeating myself at this point. If you want to persist in your essentially baseless belief that increasing the purchasing power and market participation of the poor is some magical panacea to the serious problems, including ethical problems, of the American multipayer, for profit healthcare system, you're welcome to do so, but I'm done highlighting, and at this point largely reiterating how this is simply not the case per the numbers and facts as they stand.
The health care sector in the United States consists of an array of clinicians, hospitals and other health care facilities, insurance plans, and purchasers of health care services, all operating in various configurations of groups, networks, and independent practices. Some are based in the public sector; others operate in the private sector as either for-profit or not-for-profit entities. The health care sector also includes regulators, some voluntary and others governmental. Although these various individuals and organizations are generally referred to collectively as “the health care delivery system,” the phrase suggests an order, integration, and accountability that do not exist. Communication, collaboration, or systems planning among these various entities is limited and is almost incidental to their operations. For convenience, however, the committee uses the common terminology of health care delivery system.
Source: The Health Care Delivery System - The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century - NCBI Bookshelf
Gillette announced the Mach3 razor on April 14, 1998,[8] following more than $750 million in research and development costs.[9]
Source: Gillette Mach3 - Wikipedia
Profit margins on Gillette razor blades are high.[13] In June 2009, Gillette manufactured and packaged razor blades for about US$0.10 each, and customers paid 48 times that amount in stores.[13]