[MarchHare]

There is absolutely no incentive to remove red tape and bureaucracy within a publicly entity.

Profit and competition motive are the only effective ways to reach true maximum efficiency and cost effectiveness.

If eliminating red tape and bureaucracy is your goal, a single-payer system is vastly more efficient than multiple competing insurance providers.

American practices spend $83,000 per doctor every year dealing with health insurers and other payers, whereas Ontario only doles out $22,000, according to the study published in the journal Health Affairs.

[...]

What's more, nurses and medical assistants in the U.S. spend 20.6 hours per week on administrative duties associated with payers and health insurers, whereas in Ontario, that work amounts to just 2.5 hours.

[...]

In Canada, most health costs are covered under provincial medical plans, which means that most of the time, there's just one payer to deal with.

In the U.S., every patient pays differently, either individually or through health insurance, and each health-insurance company has its own policies for billings and submissions. The paperwork associated with payment can pose a huge burden.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/05...fficient-study