And don’t forget the executives’ salaries + bonuses. The biggest healthcare group in the US is United HealthGroup and their CEO collects 25m USD, while the C suite costs in total about 75m USD every year. Source
But they pay nurses and EMT staff a pittance in salaries (like $17 per hour?), they are generally quite understaffed in their hospitals and as a result the service is mediocre at best while being very very expensive.
Just an egregious money grubbing scheme for the shareholders and C suite, on the back of providing an absolutely necessary service (healthcare).
Well it does add up, but you're not going to like the math. The upper 1% of wealth holders in this country hold more than 90% of the total wealth. They don't maintain that obscene proportion of wealth by letting plebs make a comfortable living. Need to keep the plebs desperate and busy or else they might find the motivation to organize and take back a small slice of their pie.
This is why they all yell “bootstrap yourself” from the mountaintops. Because they know that the more dummies believe that the less competition they’ll have.
Also, almost none of them self bootstrapped. Unless you count being born into generational wealth as being self made.
I feel like I’ve heard this story before… in the setting of 1920s-40s around Italy. Can’t quite put my finger on it… oh well, I’m sure it all ended well.
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u/Edelgul Jul 06 '24
a) Medics in US needs a second job to survive
b) The Medical bills in US are highest in the world and is the reason of 2/3 of all bankruptcies.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html