U.S. healthcare is unsustainable. That it will break in the next decade is predictable.
That good health is insanely unprofitable was highlighted by a staggering statistic in the recent research paper The Concentration of Health Care Spending (via B.C.):
Mean annual spending for the bottom half of (the American population) distribution was just $236 per person, totaling only $36 billion for the entire group of more than 150 million people.
We don't know why the 150 million people did not consume much in the way of "health services"-- they might have been healthy and had no need for healthcare beyond routine tests, or they might have needed care and been unable to afford it, despite the Orwellian-titled Affordable Care Act (ACA).
But let's assume that the 150 million people--roughly half of America's 317 million residents--were healthy and had no need for health services beyond minimal prevention and a few low-cost tests.
The total cost of their care was $36 billion--just over 1% of the nation's $3.2 trillion bill for healthcare and healthcare insurance. Let's assume that 90% of the populace was healthy, and the remaining 10% were very ill and needed 100 times as much care as the healthy.
The total cost of caring for the 285 million healthy people would be roughly $67 billion, or just over 2% of the $3 trillion we currently spend on healthcare. The very ill 32 million would need $23,600 each, or $755 billion.
The total cost for a largely healthy population and 32 million ill people who required 100 times more care than the healthy would be $822 billion, or roughly 25% of the $3.2 trillion we currently spend annually.
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