Rent-seeking:
Profit-driven health insurance companies engage in this. A government single-payer system does not. That is why the per capita cost of health care in Canada is only 60% of the cost in the U.S.; most of the extra 40% is going to insurance executives and shareholders.
In economics and in public-choice theory, rent-seeking involves seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through poor allocation of resources, reduced actual wealth creation, lost government revenue, increased income inequality,[1] and (potentially) national decline.
Attempts at capture of regulatory agencies to gain a coercive monopoly can result in advantages for the rent seeker in the market while imposing disadvantages on (incorrupt) competitors. This constitutes one of many possible forms of rent-seeking behavior. The idea was originated by Gordon Tullock and the term was coined by Anne Krueger in a 1974 essay.[2]
Profit-driven health insurance companies engage in this. A government single-payer system does not. That is why the per capita cost of health care in Canada is only 60% of the cost in the U.S.; most of the extra 40% is going to insurance executives and shareholders.