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Mark Cuban Says Health Care Prices Are ‘Horrible’; he says hospitals and doctors are “first rate providers” but suggests a way to fix things
Mark Cuban doesn’t hold back when it comes to his thoughts on America’s health care system. In Bluesky on December 10, he explained exactly why he believes the system is broken and how you are taking steps to fix it.
Their biggest complaint? Hospitals and physicians are forced to act as “subprime lenders” because they assume 100% of the credit risk for unpaid deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance. “This is crazy,” he wrote, adding, “When they can’t collect payment, they raise prices to make up for that loss.” According to him, this leads to the “horrible” price of health care.
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The the ripple effects don’t stop there. According to Cuban, hospitals must function as mortgage loan servicers, navigating a maze of administrative costs to collect these unpaid amounts. This cycle pushes many patients into medical debt, often leading to bankruptcy. In Cuban’s eyes, this is not only inefficient, but a humanitarian disaster.
Insurance companies don’t get a free pass on their criticism either. Cuban says that for more than 50 million Americans with such plans, insurers don’t offer traditional insurance. Instead, they function as “care authorizers and payment processors,” determining the approval and cost of care, with a primary focus on preventing fraud and assessing medical necessity.
Statista data indicates that by 2023, approximately 65% of American workers were enrolled in self-funded health insurance plans, where employers assume direct financial responsibility for employee medical claims.
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Cuban believes that this role should not fall to insurers at all. “This authorization process is one that we should not ask the ins comps to do,” he argued. Instead, he believes independent third-party administrators (TPAs) with no financial incentive to approve or deny care should manage that process. “The first step,” he said, “is for self-insured entities to use third-party TPAs and move away from insurance companies for that service.”
