Is AI the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Part 6 of “The Business Model of Healthcare: From Costs to Cures” The healthcare industry has long been a paradox: a sector defined by life-saving innovation that is simultaneously shackled by crushing inefficiency and skyrocketing costs. For decades, the economic model has seemed fundamentally broken, with spending escalating far beyond inflation while outcomes lag. Yet,…
Part 3 of “The Business Model of Healthcare: From Costs to Cures” series Industry-cited averages to “bring a drug to market” often trace to Tufts Center estimates of roughly $2.6 billion (capitalized, 2013$), with some accounting approaches placing the figure higher when company-level R&D is divided by approvals. But a 2025 RAND study in JAMA…
Beyond Fee-for-Service: New Payment Models After decades of paying providers for quantity rather than quality, American healthcare is slowly shifting toward “value-based care”—payment models that reward health outcomes over service volume. Value equals outcomes that matter to patients divided by total cost of care (risk-adjusted). In 2023, Medicare ACOs in the Shared Savings Program generated…
Update: 2023–2024 data show the U.S. still spends far more than peers—driven by prices and administrative complexity—while underperforming on access, equity, and outcomes. Unless noted, U.S. figures are 2023 CMS/KFF; international comparisons use OECD/KFF 2023; performance rankings are Commonwealth Fund 2024. In the global healthcare landscape, the United States holds a dubious distinction: it spends…
This is Part 4 of the Table 42 series, The Business Model of Healthcare. In the global landscape of developed nations, the United States healthcare system stands as a significant outlier. While its counterparts have largely converged on universal systems that separate health coverage from employment, the U.S. maintains a complex, fragmented, and costly multi-payer…
The Scale of American Healthcare Spending In 2023, the United States spent an unprecedented $4.9 trillion on healthcare.1 This figure, confirmed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), translates to an average of $14,570 for every person in the country. It’s a number so vast it exceeds the entire GDP of Japan.2 Yet,…