Mark Cuban calls healthcare pricing ‘horrible’ – says hospitals and doctors are ‘subprime lenders’ – but he’s proposing a way to fix things
Mark Cuban isn’t holding back when it comes to his thoughts on the American health care system. On Bluesky, on December 10, he explained exactly why he thinks the system is broken and How is he taking steps to fix it?.
His biggest gripe? Hospitals and physicians are being forced into the role of “subprime lender” because they bear 100% of the credit risk for unpaid deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. “It’s crazy,” he wrote, “when they can’t collect payments, they raise prices to cover that deficit.” According to him, this leads to “horrendous” health care costs.
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The The ripple effects do not stop here. According to Cuban, hospitals have to act like mortgage loan servicers, navigating a maze of administrative costs to collect those unpaid amounts. This cycle pushes many patients into medical debt, often leading to bankruptcy. In Cuba’s eyes, this is not just unacceptable—it’s a humanitarian disaster.
Insurance companies aren’t getting a free pass in his criticism either. For more than 50 million Americans under such plans, insurers don’t provide traditional insurance, Cuban says. Instead, they act as “care authorizers and payment processors,” determining the approval and cost of care, with a primary focus on preventing fraud and assessing medical necessity.
Data from Statista shows that in 2023, about 65% of US workers were enrolled in self-funded health insurance plans, where employers take direct financial responsibility for employees’ medical claims.
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Cuban doesn’t think that’s a role insurers should have at all. “This official process is what we should not be asking Ins Comps to do,” he argued. Instead, he believes that independent third-party administrators (TPAs) should handle the process, with no financial incentive to approve or deny care. “The first step,” he said, “is for self-insured entities to use third-party TPAs and move away from insurance companies for this service.”
