Show HN: Modeling the US Debt as a Healthcare Pricing Failure ($26T Gap) https://ift.tt/lwyB2PS

Show HN: Modeling the US Debt as a Healthcare Pricing Failure ($26T Gap) I spent the last month rebuilding the US federal budget from 1970–2024 to find the 'Taproot' of our fiscal collapse. The math suggests we don't have a sovereign debt crisis; we have a pricing crisis. I isolated federal healthcare spending and compared it to a baseline of CPI + a 1.7% 'Innovation Premium' (using Germany as a control group). The findings: Federal healthcare overpayment accounts for $26T of our national debt. Without this 'Monopoly Premium,' the US would have barely 9T in debt today. The Structural Cause: I trace this back to the 1997 Residency Cap (supply freeze) and the 85% MLR (which turns insurers into cost-plus contractors) I'm interested in the community's feedback on the 'Triple Multiplier' logic (Price + Innovation + Interest). P.S. I'm currently hosting a deeper discussion on the policy implications of this data over on LinkedIn bit.ly/3YEv6kl https://ift.tt/BvkEH6d December 17, 2025 at 10:53PM