Reply #16: What you neglect to address here

[nichomachus]

And the intermediaries among the intermediaries. It's not just the insurance companies. There are other people who act as intermediaries among the insurance companies.

So, there is a whole layer of bureaucracy that does absolutely nothing to provide you health care OR insurance. They don't make anything. They don't distribute anything. They don't see patients. They do nothing but pass papers -- or electrons -- around among the other layers of bureaucracy. You never deal with them directly.

These people make billions of dollars. One of these companies just sold for $4.6 billion dollars. Under single payer, they will have nothing to do. They are not going to go quietly.

Since 1990, insurance companies have donated $315,000,000 to politicians. In the same period, the health-care industrial complex has donated $461,000,000. They did not do this out of a sense of patriotic duty.